If you want to attract a hedgehog to your site, build a house for him, pick up a treat. You will also learn how to keep hedgehogs at home and equip an aviary for them.
Hedgehog? a very useful animal for the garden and vegetable garden. If these representatives of wildlife like it on your site, they will fight slugs, caterpillars, and other harmful insects. And if a hedgehog settles at home, you need to know how to properly maintain it, how to build a house for an animal.
About the hedgehog - for children and adults
Before you take this animal to your home or attract it to the garden plot, you need to find out what hedgehogs like.
If you want hedgehogs to fight harmful insects in your area, then attract them. Here's what to feed the hedgehog.
There should be no difficulties with the nutrition of an adult. After all, the hedgehog is omnivorous, eats what a person does. But, of course, you cannot give spicy, highly salty and sweet hedgehogs. Here's a menu that might include feeding a hedgehog:
- Once a day, he must be given meat. This can be: lamb, chicken, turkey, veal from the store, as well as live food from the pet store, these are frogs, forage mice.
- It is better not to give the hedgehog chilled meat, as it can contain various bacteria and parasites. Pre-freeze it for at least a day, and then feed it to the animal by defrosting the meat and heating it to room temperature.
- Sometimes you need to give your pet raw meat, and sometimes you can boil it. You also need to feed the hedgehog with vegetables. These animals love raw carrots, which are best grated or finely chopped. I will gladly eat a hedgehog and boiled potatoes. Mash this vegetable, add chopped crackers to it. You can add a little bone or fishmeal, stir and roll into small balls.
- Sometimes you can pamper hedgehogs with pears and apples, but in small quantities.
- Useful for thorny friends and various cereals. It can be pearl barley, millet, rice, buckwheat.
- Sometimes you can feed a hedgehog with dry cottage cheese. But give no more than a teaspoon a day.
- Include chicken and quail eggs in the animal's diet, but not more than 30 g.
- Sometimes, instead of meat, a hedgehog can be given offal, they must be boiled beforehand.
- Although in nature hedgehogs usually do not eat fish, but at home sometimes be sure to give it. But we must give preference to horse mackerel, mackerel, but such fish as pollock, hake, haddock, bream, carp, perch, ide, crucian carp can lead to impaired absorption of nutrients and vitamin deficiency.
- Sometimes you need to offer the hedgehog greens. These can be dandelion leaves, wheat germ, carrot tops. Sometimes you can give your pet vitamins from the pet store.
- In wildlife, hedgehogs eat slugs and snails, but at home it is better not to give such food. Since molluscs are mostly infested with parasites, eating one can make the thorny pet sick. But mealworms, insects and larvae, May beetles will be a good addition to the diet of hedgehogs.
- As for the feeding rate, if a hedgehog weighs 700 g, he needs 150 g of food per day. But a pregnant female can eat twice as much. However, you need to monitor the volume of food so as not to overfeed it.
- Adults should eat twice a day, morning and evening. It is better to feed the hedgehog at the same time so that he has a regime. But the main part of the food is given to the pet in the evening, since it is a nocturnal animal, and if it is hungry, it will make noise in the dark in search of a treat.
- Feed a pregnant female 3-4 times a day, and little hedgehogs 2-3 times a day. They do not tolerate hunger well, so make sure they are always full.
- If you introduce any new food, do it gradually, in small portions.
If a hedgehog has settled in your country house or comes to your site with the onset of dusk, sometimes leave him a boiled egg, a little cottage cheese, cereal without sugar and other delicacies.
Hedgehogs are happy to eat dry animal food, but you need to give very little, as it swells in the stomach. Be sure to put a bowl of water for the hedgehog to drink. Now, if a pond is dug on your site, it is better to cover it with a fine mesh at night, because a hedgehog can fall into this deep pool in search of water.
A common mistake? give milk to hedgehogs. Young individuals can sometimes be offered goat and sheep, but cow cannot, since it has a high fat content.
You can sometimes leave the above types of food not only on the site, but also in the hedgehog's house. Build a cozy apartment for them or help them make a nest, then the hedgehog will settle next to you, help fight pests and give warmth.
How to make a house for a hedgehog with your own hands?
Usually a hedgehog builds a nest for itself from fallen leaves, hay, straw. You can help him to make a similar structure, using also tow.
A hedgehog at home will gladly build a nest for himself from a newspaper. But in the country, this material will get wet if you just leave it in the open air. Therefore, it is better to put the newspaper in the house created for the hedgehog. Check out the first draft.
The hedgehog's dwelling is similar to that of a human, but only this is a miniature copy. As you can see, first there is a hallway at the entrance, from it you can get into the dining room, from there into the bedroom. The entrance should be small so that no species of animals dangerous for hedgehogs, for example, cats, can get inside.
In the dining room, put a bowl where you will sometimes pour special dry food and leave a container with water. In the bedroom, put crumpled newspapers, from which the hedgehog can make himself a sleeping place.
Attach the roof with the piano hinges so that it folds back. Then you can change food and water, as well as remove old newspapers and spread new ones. Cover the gap between the dining room and the hallway with a swinging closing sash. It will be secured with two small hinges. The hedgehog will be able to open it in one and the other direction.
Before a long winter, the hedgehog needs to stock up on fat, so feed it especially carefully now, in the fall. And in winter, the animal's refuge should be dry and warm.
You will understand that the hedgehog has fallen into hibernation if he does not leave the house for a week, and the newspapers nearby are intact. Don't bother the animal to prepare it for hibernation.
But from mid-April to May, the hedgehog will move away from sleep. During this period, there are still few insects in the garden, so you need to feed your pets.
It is not necessary to clean the area very carefully in the spring, leave the hedgehog somewhere half-over-matured grass, leaves, so that he can find food for himself here.
See what other hedgehogs at home prefers to live in.
If you know how to weave, weave him a house from flexible twigs. There is a narrow entrance so that aggressive animals do not get inside. And the interior is quite spacious.
To prevent precipitation from accumulating on the roof, make it acute. It consists of planks, the upper ones overlap the lower ones.
Make a house from a pallet.
Remove several planks from the pallets, saw them off. Place 4 bars vertically in the corners, attach boards to them with nails or self-tapping screws to make four walls and a bottom. Make an internal partition, in which you first cut out the entrance. You also need to make an entrance from the outside.
Where there will be a bedroom, put leaves and newspapers so that the animal can make a soft bed for itself. Make a wooden roof, additionally insulate with dark polyethylene so that precipitation does not flow. It is better to cover such a house with foliage, leaving only the entrance free. Then this dwelling will be close to natural, and the hedgehog will gladly settle in it.
Check out the steps involved in creating such a hedgehog house.
This is how comfortable it is to sleep in a built dwelling.
You can put in not only dry foliage and newspapers, but also soft towels. The animal will be happy to sleep on them.
You can make a house for a hedgehog not only from wood, but also from brick. See how the next one is created.
House for a hedgehog made of bricks - a master class and step by step photos
Take:
- bricks;
- branches;
- boards;
- dry leaves.
All this will make a wonderful house for a hedgehog. First level the topsoil and lay the first row of bricks to form the perimeter of the building.
Leave a 10cm by 10cm entrance and lay a second row of bricks. They need to be placed above the entrance so that they become a kind of visor. Then lay out the third row of bricks, lay the boards on top, nailing them with slats.
To prevent the house from getting wet, attach the film on top. Such a structure should be placed in a quiet corner in the country, so as not to disturb the hedgehog. Sprinkle soil on top of the house, put branches and foliage on top. When a hedgehog chooses a house of this type, you do not need to open the lid to watch how he settled there. Otherwise, the hedgehog may leave the house and not return.
House for a hedgehog from roofing material with your own hands
You can put several small arcs in a criss-cross, line the floor with moss under them and put leaves here. Cover this structure from above with roofing material or film, securing this material to the ground. Several stones can be put here for this purpose. Leave a small hole so the hedgehog can go inside. Such a house will help him hide from the rain and wait out the bad weather.
Rules for keeping hedgehogs at home and in the country
If you have a hedgehog at home, you can make a fleece bag for your pet to keep warm in.
To do this, you need to cut out two triangles from fleece, sew them together to get such a cone. You can additionally make an interlayer of padding polyester.
Create a pumpkin house. This one consists of several wedges. You also need to make the inner and outer surfaces, and place a synthetic winterizer between the two layers. A rectangle of brown fabric is sewn on top, which will become the tail of the pumpkin.
You can sew large dark buttons in the form of an eye and a nose, as well as small semicircular ears to such a creation. And the mouth will become the entrance to the house.
You can approach the issue even more creatively if the hedgehog is at home, as in nature. Sewing for him a hut in the form of a hemp made of felt is not difficult, make an entrance and a window. Decorate this stump with nuts, cones, place plastic mushrooms next to it.
To make your pet feel good not only in the wild, but also at home, provide him with everything he needs. The hedgehog needs a safe home. But these small animals climb well in the cage, so it needs to be closed if it is open at the top. Some cages have side bars. Since hedgehogs climb well on them, they can fall, harming themselves.
Better to use terrarium or Dune cages. You can make a showcase cage with your own hands.
This can be done from plywood sheets, fastening them at the edges. You will also make a similar cage from a box made of corrugated cardboard. Also, out of cardboard, make a place where the hedgehog will sleep. For this, ordinary cardboard is suitable. Take two sheets, tape them at the corner and use the same adhesive tape to attach them to the floor and to the wall. Lay a disposable diaper inside, put a bowl of food and water in the far corner. But it is better to use a special drinker. Such ball drinkers are convenient for such animals. And if water is poured into a bowl, he may spill it.
But if you bought a hedgehog, he is used to drinking from the breeder from a bowl, then use a heavy ceramic one so that he does not turn it over. But gradually accustom him to a ball drinker. The food bowls should also be heavy enough that the hedgehog cannot turn them over.
You can put a special wheel inside the cage, which the hedgehog will periodically rotate and thereby observe the necessary physical activity.
And down you can pour sawdust or fine wood filler for rodents. Place a fleece bag in one corner of the cage so that the hedgehog can hide in it in the cold. Place the animal cage in a warm, well-lit area free from drafts and direct sunlight.
If you want the animal to be comfortable, its house looks beautiful, then you can make it yourself from plywood. And such a structure is decorated from the outside with logs made of cardboard.
To do this, you need to cut strips of cardboard, fold each one so that it resembles a tube and glue the curled edge to the base. Now place each tube on a piece of paper or cardboard, circle and cut out. Glue these circles to the ends of the tubes so that they turn into logs. Paint them brown.
Disinfection and hygiene must be observed to prevent the hedgehog from getting sick. But he only needs to wash his paws sometimes if they are dirty. And the thorns just occasionally need to be wiped with a damp cloth. If you need to wash the hedgehog, do it only in a warm room and take water at a temperature of 37-38 degrees. The hedgehog is carefully placed in the water, but only when it is not curled up into a circle. Make sure that your eyes and nose are not submerged. If you are using shampoo for rodents or other small animals, be sure to rinse it off thoroughly. Then the animal needs to be taken out, wrapped in a warm soft cloth, held in your hands so that it dries.
This is how you can keep a hedgehog at home. And if you want to watch them from the outside, then watch the prepared video. Funny videos will help you fall in love with hedgehogs even more.
The hedgehog will feel comfortable at home if you make the next dwelling for him.
