In the spring, when the snow melts and the danger of frost has passed, hedgehogs, which have lost weight during hibernation, emerge from the warm mink. During this period, it is important for small spiny predators to eat well. They devote almost all night time to hunting. Spring and summer for hedgehogs is a period of mating and breeding.
It is necessary
- - Sawdust;
- - old newspapers;
- - bowls for food and water;
- - food;
- - vitamins;
- - medical gloves.
Instructions
Step 1
In a year, especially active females can bring up to two broods of hedgehogs (from four to eight cubs). Pregnancy lasts forty-nine days. Before giving birth, the hedgehog becomes restless, irritable, eats little, giving preference to water. He tries to equip a special brood nest in a quiet place for future offspring as best as possible: he drags pieces of bark, moss and leaves into it.
Step 2
Hedgehogs, like all mammals, are viviparous. At birth, babies weigh about twelve to fourteen grams, and the length is seven centimeters. Immediately after birth, the tiny bodies are defenseless. Soft white and gray needles appear on bright pink skin only after four hours. Hedgehogs are blind, but they already know how to curl up into a ball. The eyes open after sixteen days. In the first days of life, the mother does not leave the brood. She warms the hedgehogs with the warmth of her body and feeds them with milk.
Step 3
Real needles, like in adult hedgehogs, appear in young animals in a month. In the second month of life, hedgehogs undergo a kind of training. The mother shows you how to get food, how to hunt, and who to fear. Although the babies already feed on worms, caterpillars, the hedgehog still feeds the offspring with milk. This is how the summer period passes, and in the fall, young hedgehogs leave their mother and begin to live independently. Hedgehogs live in the wild for three to four years, and in captivity for up to ten years.
