Cute thorny ball… Invariably the positive hero of numerous children's fairy tales and cartoons. Recently, the townspeople are increasingly getting this animal as a pet. Do you know what a hedgehog eats, how to properly care for it, and indeed, what to do to make the animal comfortable, calm and joyful even in captivity?
Let's try to talk about this in more detail.
What does a hedgehog eat? General information about the representative of this class
Opening any encyclopedia, you can find out that the common hedgehog is considered a mammal of the hedgehog family of the same name. It is distributed in many parts of the world, from Europe to Asia Minor, Western Siberia, Kazakhstan and Eastern China. The body length of the animal is on average 25 cm, the tail is very short - 3 cm, an elongated muzzle with a sharp and constantly wet nose. Body weight rarely exceeds 800 grams.
It is generally accepted that a hedgehog is covered from head to toe with spines, the length of which, by the way, does not exceed 3 cm. This is not entirely true. The fact is that if you look closely, you can see that the head and abdomen of the animal, on the contrary, are covered with thick and hard brown hair.
Hollow inside needles grow at the same rate as wool, and in adults their number reaches an impressive figure of 5-6 thousand.
What does a hedgehog really eat?
I'm probably going to surprise a lot of people if I say that hedgehogs never eat fruit. At all. Not a gram. They are predators, which means that in nature, hedgehogs eat mice, snakes, and various insects.
Why then all these apples on pins and needles? Is it just a masterstroke in advertising juice? This is not entirely true. These mammals do prick sour fruits, but not at all in order, as is commonly believed, to take them home and eat them.
According to scientific data, the body of this animal is initially, literally from birth, infected with a huge number of parasites, which he tries to get rid of with the help of malic or any other fruit acid. Hedgehogs that have chosen parks and city squares as their habitat often do the same, but not with apples, pears or plums, but with cigarette butts. Spilled tobacco kills the animal's subcutaneous mites.
Now you yourself understand that the hedgehog eats a snake, beetle, butterfly or lizard, and not what we are used to seeing in commercials about juice or fruit.
By the way, after hibernation, the animal wakes up very thin and pretty hungry, so the first days it can look for food for days on end.
What does a hedgehog eat? The most interesting information about a mammal
- Think about the most common time you've seen hedgehogs. That's right, at dusk or late in the evening. And this is not surprising, the animal is not at all afraid of meeting a person, as many believe, it simply leads a nocturnal lifestyle in itself.
- The animal can be considered the owner in the universal sense of the word. He rarely moves away from his home, and completely drives away strangers with a peculiar grunt.
- In a normal situation, hedgehogs communicate with each other by whistling.
- After a 49-day pregnancy, babies are born weighing only 12 grams each. They are completely naked, blind and helpless.
- Water is destructive for this family, therefore it is strictly forbidden to bathe mammals who have settled in the house as pets. In the wild, they prefer to hide even from light rain and never settle near swamps and other bodies of water.
- When playing, little hedgehogs usually "butt".
- Pricking leaves on needles in autumn, the animal prepares for hibernation and tries to keep warm in all possible ways.
