How to feed a hedgehog at home

Who didn’t happen to drag a hedgehog home? Surely in childhood, every child will certainly do this. And today there are even breeders who are breeding unusual pets. Of course, the new home owners have a question: how to feed hedgehogs at home? And let's understand.

Do cartoons lie?

Who knows the misconception that hedgehogs love mushrooms and apples? Say, they drag them on thorns into their hole, they make reserves for the winter. Doctors In winter they only need reserves in the form of their own fat. And apples are only for getting rid of parasites. Sour rotten fruit juice perfectly cleans the needles from uninvited guests. But now it’s not about that.

All the cuteness of the hedgehogs is greatly exaggerated. These are cruel and voracious predators. In nature, they feed on mice, snakes, snails, chicks, frogs, insects. As you can see, the menu is very diverse. Sometimes hedgehogs can enjoy a fruit picker, but this is more likely from hopelessness. Mushrooms, milk, bread, sausage, cheese, animals in nature do not eat. Do not give them at home. Moreover, a hedgehog may die from milk. And certainly you should not give them dishes of human cuisine.

It is interesting. In order for the hedgehog to live 10 years or more at home, he will have to make a separate menu for him. It should be diverse, nutritious and modest in size. An adult animal needs no more than 250 g of total feed per day.

How to determine if you are feeding your hedgehog correctly? By weight. An adult hedgehog should weigh in October at least 800 g. In spring and summer, a little less. And in the winter they don’t weigh it, because the hedgehog is sleeping at this time.

The kitchen is not for the faint of heart

It is worth noting that the menu for hedgehogs at home is a very bloodthirsty thing and not for squeamish people. His diet should consist of such products (the list is made in descending order):

Raw meat
This is chicken, veal, horse meat, lamb. It is strictly forbidden to give pork! Everything else can be given in the form of small pieces or grinded into minced meat. The same category includes mice (adults and children), frogs, snails, slugs. Some owners are afraid to infect their pet with worms, so be sure to boil the meat. Interestingly, they also boil mice and frogs? Still, it is preferable to give the hedgehog raw products, but to purchase them in proven places.

Secret. Many sources categorically forbid feeding domestic hedgehogs with meat with a choke. Strange, but in nature these cuties are still those scavengers. Dead chicks or small animals are eaten by both cheeks.

Insects
Larvae, pupae, worms, adult insects. Just in huge quantities! You will have to catch horsetails, locusts, grasshoppers, moths, lacewings, bugs, and more, and more. Then all this good you have to somehow kill.

Tip. You can’t give homemade cockroaches to hedgehogs!

Experienced hedgehog breeders are advised to cram insects in a glass jar, close with a screw cap and ... bake in the oven. After this, it is necessary to carefully dry the cold corpses of insects. You need to store them in the same glass jar with a tight lid.

Important! Why all these tricks? So that during the meal the insects did not run away elementarily. Plus in the fall where will you get such a treat for a hedgehog? What if he is not going to hibernate? This is where such stocks come in handy.

Did you know that one adult hedgehog calmly eats up to 70 May beetles per day? And besides this it eats.

Vegetables
Basically this is a regular raw carrot. Her hedgehogs are preferred to other vegetables. According to the experience of the owners, prickly pets eat carrots better if they are rubbed. Large pieces of slyness are usually ignored.Vegetables can be replaced with a small amount of apple or pear. It is also desirable to grind them. By the way, what prevents you from experimenting? Try giving your pet slices of other vegetables or fruits. Suddenly he will be a great sweet tooth and will be happy to eat such a treat?

These three groups are the main component of the entire diet of hedgehogs at home. But the same type of nutrition can be affected by a lack of vitamins and minerals. Accordingly, this will negatively affect the health of the prickly grumble.

What else can you give a hedgehog

1. Porridge. Cooked from various cereals, strictly only on water, without the addition of salt and sugar. It can be rice, wheat, pearl barley, millet, buckwheat. Legumes are not recommended. Firstly, hedgehogs do not like them, but they can eat from hunger. Secondly, it is still unknown how the gastrointestinal tract will respond to such a treat.
2. Cottage cheese. It is given very rarely and very little, literally half a teaspoon.
3. Liver and other offal. Unlike meat, this component of the diet is recommended to be given to the hedgehog only in boiled form. A lung, a spleen, a heart, a stomach - all this hedges perfectly. They are generally greedy to the guts.
4. Liquids. Natural juices without sugar, meat and fish broths without salt and spices, ordinary drinking water. Hedgehogs in nature drink, but not enough. They have enough liquid from amphibians and small animals. But at home, water, even in the form of a broth, should always be nearby.
5. The eggs. Quail or chicken, boiled, raw. They are also given in such a volume that the daily portion is not more than 30 g. Usually 2 quail eggs per week are enough.
6. A fish. In natural conditions, hedgehogs do not fish. But, if you offer a homemade hedgehog a piece of fish, then he is unlikely to refuse. Just do not give a river! It causes a lack of many vitamins in the body of the animal, delays normal growth and development. In babies up to a year, the skeleton is incorrectly formed, then they often suffer from rickets. Treat your pet with a slice of sea fish (mackerel, whale, saury, pollock). Such a treat, on the contrary, will only benefit.
7. Potatoes. Give only boiled. The best option would be to make small balls of grated crackers and mint potatoes, and then offer your home hedgehog. For health, you can add a little fish or bone meal to the mass. And for taste add porridge, minced meat. This type of feeding is very convenient than heaped food on a saucer. And the animal will not be capricious, choosing tasty pieces. He will have to eat the whole ball whole.

Tip. Do not feed the hedgehog at home with cooked pasta, soups, sweets from your table. Prickly grumbler is not aware of the benefits or harms to his body. He eats it all safely. But the result can be completely unpredictable, from malaise to death. Do not try to treat the animal with salted, smoked or fried fish. Barbecue, sausages, biscuits, chips - also a taboo for a hedgehog.

And further. If you have a hedgehog in your house, but you don’t want to catch amphibians and insects (insert your reason here), then go to the pet store. There you can buy mice, insects, larvae and worms. Which are also definitely without pathogenic microorganisms or pathogenic bacteria.

How to feed a hedgehog at home? The most suitable food, close to nutrition in the natural environment. Then your pet will live with you for many years, well-fed and healthy.

Video: what and how to feed a hedgehog