Hedgehog is the most common animal on the planet, especially in Russia. It happens that even an ordinary city dweller can see this creature without going out into the countryside, because sometimes the hedgehog can be found even in the city. And how can you get past this funny animal? I would like to take him to his home, so that every day he would please with his sweet appearance.
Tearing an animal away from nature is not a good thing, but for that matter, you need to create all the conditions for keeping your new pet. First of all, you need to know what the hedgehog eats. You cannot fully provide him with the diet that he adhered to in nature, but you can try to get closer to this.
What does a hedgehog eat?
If you analyze the classification of hedgehogs, you can immediately see that they belong to the order Insectivores. From here we make a logical conclusion: their main food is all sorts of insects, and not fruits and mushrooms, as children's tales tell us. The list of what the hedgehog eats also includes small rodents and frogs, worms, mollusks, lizards. Sometimes they get themselves more inaccessible food, for example, eggs of birds, even the chicks themselves. The amazing fact is that hedgehogs eat snakes.
This is a very sweet, but arrogant creature. What other animal is capable, without prejudice to itself, of ruining a hornet's nest and eating all the striped inhabitants that are there ?! Hedgehogs do not care at all, even the strongest poisons, so they calmly eat snakes, bumblebees, bees and wasps. Such immunity of hedgehogs is considered an amazing feature of this animal, but zoologists still have not found out what their secret is. Imagine what a breakthrough in medicine will be if, thanks to hedgehogs, we can find a universal antidote!
The maintenance of a hedgehog in captivity
What the hedgehogs eat in nature, and how they can be fed, are completely different things. After all, where will you find a bird's nest that your pet would gladly destroy by eating raw eggs? Of course, based on this, hedgehogs can be quite successfully fed a chicken egg. Worms, larvae, and other insects that these animals eat are easily found in any pet store. In addition, your hedgehog will not refuse from minced meat.
All have heard about the favorite delicacy of hedgehogs - milk. Do not forget about this fact, pamper your favorites! Another delicious nectar for hedgehogs is honey. In addition, it can act as a medicine for your pet’s immunity. If you summarize the weight of all the food that the hedgehog consumes per day, you get about 200 grams of a variety of foods.
Hibernation feeding
These little creatures eat disproportionately. On average, their daily norm is at least 60 May bugs. Therefore, feed your pet well, it is especially important to feed him plentifully before wintering. Hedgehogs hibernate at this time of year, therefore, in order to survive the winter, the animal needs to gain considerable weight - at least 700 grams.
Without fail, let your domestic hedgehog fall into hibernation, otherwise the animal will get tired from constant winter activity and will soon die. Therefore, provide him with all the conditions for hibernation:
- the weight of the hedgehog should be more than 700 grams;
- temperature - from 0 ° С to 5 ° С;
- put a lot of dry moss and leaves into the cage.
In general, answering the question of what the hedgehog eats, we can say that he, like a person, is omnivorous, especially having such a feature as resistance to poisons.
