Hello, I am a seventh grader at Warrensburg Middle School. I am going to tell you a little bit of what I learned when I did my report on hedgehogs.
The hedgehog is a very gentle, charming creature. They live anywhere from climates of 65 degrees to 100 degrees F. But they are most abundant between 80 and 100 degrees F. There are a variety of habitats that they live in. Some of them are grassland, scrub, savanna, and suburban gardens. They are very partial to very dry climates. They are basically never found in wet, marshy country or forests.
They are burrowers found where they can sleep in buildings, or under tangles of brush, wood, or dry leaf litter. Most of these places provide an abundance of ground-dwelling insects and other invertebrates which hedgehogs love to eat. Hedgehogs are omnivores, this means that they eat all different types of things. In the wild they eat earthworms, slugs, snails, ground-nesting birds, small mammals, frogs, crabs, fruit, fungi, roots, ground nuts, ect.
While hedgehogs are not immune to snake venom, they can tolerate about 40 times as much venom as a gunia pig can. Hedgehogs have few natural enemies because of there unique defense mechanisms of their sharp spines and their ability to roll up in to a ball! Most beaks, claws, and teeth are usually unable to penetrate this armor. The greatest enemy to the hedgehog is man.
In the classroom we keep it in a cage with a box and ceder chips in it, They eat dry dog or cat food in the classroom. In the classroom we keep the snakes, fish, and geckos on one side and then all the birds and mammals on the other side.
I would like to thank my sister that is a senior at WHS, my three older brothers that are students at WHS, and my parents. Thanks guys. You're the greatest.
