Many animal lovers decide to get themselves a hedgehog. Someone buys a pet from hands, someone from special nurseries, and some just find it in the forest and bring it home. Most often in houses you can find an ordinary, white-bellied or eared hedgehog. Outwardly, of course, they differ, but the principles of nutrition and maintenance are similar.
Instructions
Step 1
Hedgehogs are crepuscular and nocturnal animals. They hunt at night and sleep quietly in their burrows during the day. So that your pet comes out to you during the day, start feeding him during the day. After a while, his biological clock will change, and the hedgehog will delight you with night silence and activity during the day.
Step 2
Hedgehogs are solitary animals. Therefore, keeping many individuals in one cage is unacceptable. They can live in a heap only at a very young age near the mother and during those periods when they mate. In an adult state, several animals will fight, quarrel; fight for food, drinker and nest. They will not have any rest together. They can bite the owner and become very aggressive. Hedgehogs alone quickly get used to the owner, they love delicacies and affection.
Step 3
Hedgehogs are best kept in a cage, aviary or on a balcony. Do not leave a hedgehog in the room unattended. This is due to the fact that they like to gnaw on wires, furniture, and at the same time take parts of your carpets or blankets to their nest as material for the nest. The hedgehog's cage should be large and spacious; preferably with metal rods. Such a cage will look aesthetically pleasing, it is easy to wash and clean, it allows a lot of air and light to pass through. There should always be a drinking bowl with clean water in the cage or aviary. It is also worth equipping a kind of burrow for the hedgehog, where he can hide from prying eyes and rest.
Step 4
When cleaning the cage, do not throw out all the material from there. Cleaning the area for an animal is a lot of stress. Therefore, it is recommended to wash the cage once a week, and the burrow once every three months. Hay, straw, or corn litter can be used instead of bedding. After cleaning the cage, add moss or dry foliage to serve as material for the hedgehog's nest. He will build a resting place himself. Several times a month, it is worth disinfecting the feeder, tray and drinker with hot water so that parasites do not breed. It will be useful to lay a dry chamomile between the tray and the bottom of the cage, this scares off harmful insects (lice, fleas).
Step 5
The diet of hedgehogs is varied in many ways. They eat absolutely everything, but the basis of their diet is animal food. The hedgehog can offer frogs, lizards, mice, some fish, cockroaches, worms, crickets. Insects are especially good at replenishing the hedgehog's body with nutrients. These animals also eat vegetables and fruits, but do not abuse them. Sometimes you can pamper your pet with eggs - both chicken and quail. In their natural environment, hedgehogs often destroy bird nests. For your pet, you can cook meat balls as food. To do this, grind the meat into minced meat and mix with cereals (rice or buckwheat). Sometimes you can offer your pet milk, fermented baked milk, kefir or cottage cheese.
Step 6
In their natural environment, hedgehogs hibernate for the winter. In a home environment, if the room temperature is consistently warm, they may not. But the absence of hibernation has a bad effect on the animal's body: the hedgehog becomes more lethargic, gets sick and may die. Therefore, it is worth preparing him for hibernation. To do this, he must gain weight and weigh at least 800 grams before a long sleep. If the weight of the hedgehog is less during hibernation, he may die. In this case, it is better to wake the pet up. To wake up, you need to wrap the hedgehog in a towel and place a bottle of hot water next to it. For good hibernation, it is necessary that the temperature in the room be lowered to 12 °, and the hedgehog's hole should be insulated with hay. For this, the animal can be moved to the balcony.
