What do hedgehogs eat? Such a question can be heard in a pet store or in a bazaar where these amazing animals are sold. Probably there is no person who has lived at least a few years who would not hear about the hedgehog. Children know that this animal eats milk, apples, mushrooms, etc. There are hedgehogs who live at home and run around the room at night, tapping their claws on the floor. And when you scare him, he turns into a ball and sniffs if touched with a stick or foot in his shoes.
It is not recommended to touch the hedgehogs with your fingers or hands, especially those who live in the wild - in a garden, in a country house, in a meadow or in a forest. Hedgehogs still live in the steppe, and some even in the desert.
Hedgehogs can live next to humans. For example, in our garden a hedgehog lived with small hedgehogs four meters from the house, in a bush. I cleaned the old thickets there and accidentally found her nest, in which there were three small flat pink hedgehogs with white soft needles. I showed them to everyone who turned out to be at home, then carried them to a place in the nest. It was round, 20–25 cm in diameter, made of sticks, grass, leaves, pieces of plastic bags and newspapers. And from the inside it is laid out with thin blades of grass, old wool (probably, dog) and other “softnesses”.
After an hour and a half (the Internet worked quickly), we already knew what the hedgehogs eat, where they live, how they behave, and who loves them (is). And as soon as dusk set in, the hedgehog went hunting. The dog, who lived in the yard, as soon as the hedgehog came, raised a bark and called everyone to look at this prickly miracle. Later it turned out that this dog is not afraid of hedgehogs. And somehow late in the evening we heard sluggish watering, then there was a squeal, as if a kitten were just as mournful.
I thought that our dog attacked the kitten and ran out of the house to save the baby. But it turned out to be a hedgehog, which the dog (a very kind Caucasian) rolled his paw along the gravel road and was surprised that this ball also squeaks. To the chagrin of the dog, I had to separate them - the dog into the booth, and the hedgehog on the porch under the light of the lamp for inspection. It turned out that the prickly one was only frightened, because there were no external injuries. He was allowed onto the track, and he quickly ran about his business.
The hedgehogs I found were no more than 2 days old, because on the third day the needles usually darken. Their hedgehog was fed from 2, 3 or even 4 pairs of nipples. Papa-hedgehog, according to the usual custom, did not live with his family, but lived somewhere nearby. The hunting territory of mother-hedgehog ranged from 6 to 10 ha, and popes - 2 times more. That is, all neighboring gardens, a meadow and 2-3 hundred meters of an almost dry ditch.
Although the hedgehogs swim well, they don’t like to live in swamps - they can, but they don’t want to jump from bump to bump. They do not see well, but they sniff prey very far away, and they can catch up with it, running at a speed of up to 3 m / s. Dad doesn’t let foreign hedgehogs into his territory and doesn’t visit neighbors. Although they say that hedgehogs go to visit cubs and horses. But this is a movie. And what hedgehogs eat was also shown in the cinema.
And in life, they eat everything that comes in the hunt: adult beetles, a bear, lizards, mice, all kinds of reptiles and amphibians of small size. They can eat worms, caterpillars, slugs, eggs and chicks from nests located on the ground, and even poisonous snakes. The hedgehog feeds until late autumn, accumulating fat for the winter, like a huge bear, and then hides in a nest, wraps in its litter and falls asleep until spring. In winter, if the hedgehog is woken up, it almost certainly dies. But this is an ordinary hedgehog.
Let's talk about one more form of these animals. There is also an eared hedgehog. His ears are not like that of a hare, of course, but also large, up to 5 cm. And he is half as much as an ordinary hedgehog. Eared live in Asia and parts of Africa. In the CIS, in the southern regions. Their needles grow only on their backs. On the sides, legs, muzzle and stomach - light soft hair. An eared hedgehog lives in the desert and semi-desert. Burrows burrows himself, up to 1.5 m, or takes abandoned. For the winter, it accumulates fat and goes into the den. When in danger, either runs away, or hisses and tries to prick with needles, he is not able to curl up into a ball. It feeds on what the common hedgehogs eat - bugs, caterpillars, sometimes mice, snakes, lizards. It does not disdain berries and fruits, but does not climb trees.