Hedge - Alert is back up and running

Last night we set up the computer in the bathroom and made sure the camera was working. We put out some peanut butter and to out surprise, we saw Hedgy!! He still has his 1 dot on his back. CUTE!! He is quite big. We were having a sleepover at the time with two of our friends, so they got to see him too. Boy, those hedgehogs must be hungry! They eat all the peanut butter that I put on the plate!!

Us petting Hedgy with our friends.

Hedgehogs are back!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We are going to put back the hedgehog house because the hedgehogs are finished hibernating. (We think)

I am going to tell you a bit more about baby hedgehogs which we hope we will get this summer. Firstly, Baby hedgehogs are born approximately 4.5 weeks after becoming pregnant.The births are mostly in June and July.

At birth, Its eyes are closed. Within hours the spines begin to appear through the skin.

At two weeks the baby's eyes open and fur begins to grow, obscuring the flesh of its underbelly, which starts to darken from its original pink.

When baby hedgehogs (hoglets) are about 4 weeks old they start to venture out of the nest with their mothers

At the age of five to six weeks, the babies begin to fend for themselves. By this time they are about ten times their birth weight and will continue feeding until winter.


Baby hedgehogs grow very quickly for the first month of their life. When they leave their nest, their growth slows as they have to feed themselves. Unlike most animals, the hedgehog does not stop growing once it reaches maturity, but will very slowly continue to get bigger throughout its life.


So now you know a bit more about hedgehog babies.

Hibernation

We have some sad news.... the hedgehogs have gone into hibernation. We think that the snow mights have scared them away. Today the snow is at least 12 cm deep!

So; there probably won't be many posts until early spring when they come out of hibernation.

Have a wonderful Christmas and a great New Year! See you (and the hedgehogs) in 2010!

Another Visiter

Video cam = Daddy wrote a program so that when the motion sensor senses motion an alarm goes off on the computer and a screen shot is taken. In the morning we can look on the computer and see which hedgehogs came in the night.

One night, on Monday the 23rd at 4:09 a photo was taken. Standing on the plate was a small mouse. A mouse eating the hedgehog's peanut butter!! There have also been two other rodents in the house (other than hedgehogs), but we're not sure what they are.

Here are 3 screen shots.

1. The first photo is of the unknown rodent.

2. The second photo is of a mouse.

3. The last photo is of one of the hedgehogs. We're not sure which one.

Food?

You might ask, 'Are the hedgehogs getting a balanced diet?' Well, we asked ourselves the very same question. On the 22nd of November we decided to try feeding them cat food. We put out a few handfuls, but in the morning none of it had been eaten. The next night we tried blending together the cat food and some peanut butter. They only ate a little of that. The night after that we put out some bread, peanut butter and some rice. They ate the peanut butter and some of the rice.

A little while ago we heard that bread can make hedgehogs sick. We're not sure if it's true, but we still only put peanut butter out that week.

Hedgehog house improvment

Have you ever seen hedgehog poop? Well probably not. It looks a little like bird poop. The first time we saw the poop on the wooden floor of the house we decided that it would be easier if we just had the house on the ground, with grass as the carpet. We took off the wooden floor and ramp and changed the flat roof into an A Frame (Triangle). We also painted the roof to help keep the water out.

On the left of the photo is the webcam that we set up and all of the bits of duct tape are holding up infa-red lights so the camera can see without scaring the hedgehogs!

The last name of Cranberry is.....

MOUSSE - Oh oh Cranberry Mousse,

Cranberry Mousse is very cute!

Oh oh Cranberry Mousse!

p.s. If you don't know what cranberry mousse is, it's a mousse (like chocolate mousse) that's made of cranberries! Yummy!