A Detailed Guide to Hedgehog Farming Techniques and Management Methods
The hedgehog is a mammal of the family Erinaceidae, with a body length of 22 cm, a tail length of 2 cm, a broad head, a pointed snout, and short ears (not exceeding the length of the spines). Hedgehog skin can be used in medicine; it has the effects of directing qi downward and relieving pain, cooling the blood and stopping bleeding, and is mainly used to treat vomiting of food, abdominal pain and hernia, and intestinal-wind hemorrhoids and fistula, etc. Its heart, liver and kidneys can also be used medicinally. Hedgehogs inhabit shrub thickets and are also found near suburban villages. They like quiet, fear light and noise, are active by night and rest by day, and have a keen sense of smell. The hibernation period lasts as long as half a year, and they eat heavily in spring, summer and autumn, gaining weight quickly. Their food consists mainly of insects, but they also eat young birds, bird eggs, frogs, lizards and melons and vegetables.
In raising hedgehogs, you can simulate their wild living environment and build an enclosure connecting indoors and outdoors. Indoors, protect against heat and lower the temperature in summer, and protect against snow, frost and freezing in winter; set up a nest indoors for the hedgehogs to rest quietly. Outdoors, provide shade and cover, and you can plant shrubs and weeds on the ground and pile up mounds of earth or rockeries to let the hedgehogs feed and move about. The rearing room is about 4 sq m, and the outdoor area is about 10 sq m.
Introducing Hedgehogs
1. When introducing stock from the wild, domestication must be carried out to make the hedgehogs domesticated livestock. The number of wild hedgehogs is decreasing every year. Therefore, artificial breeding can not only meet people's medicinal and food needs, but also protect the natural resources of hedgehogs. In addition, artificial breeding requires simple equipment, and the feeding and management are simple and easy to carry out, with relatively good economic returns, making it a very promising breeding project.
2. Domesticated hedgehogs should be kept one male and one female in the same nest. They generally come into estrus and mate naturally in April to May, producing 1 to 2 litters per year, and hedgehogs aged 2 to 4 years all have reproductive capacity. During estrus, the female hedgehog is restless and agitated, with secretions from the genital area. The gestation period is about 60 days, with 4 to 6 young per litter, and at most 8. After 35 days of fertilization, the hedgehog's body weight increases; after 45 days, it moves sluggishly, with mild edema of the perineum, and before giving birth it seeks grass to make a nest. The newborn hedgehogs have soft spines and no hair, and after about 20 hours the soft spines stand up and they make a “chirping” sound. The birth weight is 13 to 15 g. Three days after birth, the young hedgehogs' soft spines harden and gradually increase in number; they open their eyes at 10 days of age, grow teeth and can walk at 20 days of age, and can eat food at about 30 days of age. The lactation period is 40 to 50 days. At 3 months, the average body weight of a young hedgehog can reach 320 to 350 g, with an average monthly weight gain of about 100 g. The period during lactation and the 100 days after lactation is the stage of fastest growth for hedgehogs, so careful management is needed to ensure and improve the quality and size of the skin.
3. When introducing stock, attention should be paid to eliminating internal and external parasites. External parasites mainly include hard ticks, psoroptic mites and sarcoptic mites. Hard ticks are dark brown and can be removed by hand; psoroptic mites cause powdery small white spots and dander on the body surface skin; sarcoptic mites cause yellow scabs to form on the skin. For treatment, a 0.05% “Kemante” bath can be used, each time for 3 to 5 minutes, at an interval of 7 days, for 3 consecutive times; or ivermectin injection can be given regularly by intramuscular injection, at a dosage of 0.2 ml per kg of body weight, which besides killing mites is also effective against ticks and Physaloptera nematodes. Internal parasites mainly include Physaloptera nematodes and sparganum larvae. Physaloptera nematodes parasitize the duodenum of hedgehogs, causing the hedgehogs to vomit, sometimes with blood in the vomit, and to pass black loose feces. Treatment uses pyrantel pamoate, with an oral dosage of 5 to 10 mg per kg of body weight. Thereafter, deworming should be carried out regularly 1 to 2 times each year. Sparganum larvae parasitize the small intestine of hedgehogs. Mild infection generally shows no clinical symptoms; in severe infection, the animal has poor appetite, with diarrhea and constipation occurring alternately. Treatment uses praziquantel at 5 to 10 mg per kg of body weight, or arecoline hydrobromide at 2 to 5 mg per kg of body weight, given orally once, and thereafter 1 to 2 times each year as preventive deworming.
Construction and Preparation of Hedgehog Farm Pens
Based on the hedgehog's habit of preferring to live alone, it is advisable to raise them in pairs in captivity; if possible, an attempt should be made to raise them in a one-male, multiple-female arrangement. The following housing conditions are based on pair rearing as the standard.
The pen is of the closed type, preferably facing south with its back to the north. Build brick walls, with a door on the south side leading to the exercise yard, and make a window on the east side. Cement floor, area 2 sq m, wall height 1.8 m. The roof is covered with the same iron mesh as the fence. Plant some trees on the west side of the exercise yard. Place a wooden box both inside the pen and in the exercise yard to make it easier for them to rest.
The above plan takes into account the keeper entering to manage things inside, so the height is 1.8 m. Another plan is for the keeper to work outside the pen, so the pen does not need to be this tall. Specifically: the pen area is 2 sq m, cement floor, brick walls, with no window. The height is 80 cm, and the roof is made of wooden boards. Make a 30 cm x 30 cm movable cover in the wooden roof boards for cleaning and feeding. Inside the pen there is a 25 cm × 20 cm opening leading to the exercise yard. The exercise yard area is 4 sq m, height 80 cm, and the fence roof and iron mesh are the same as in the above plan. The only difference is that a 30 cm × 30 cm movable cover is opened in the middle of the roof for cleaning, feeding and other management.
Hedgehog Feeding Management and Breeding Techniques
Under wild conditions, hedgehogs are omnivorous, mainly eating animal-based foods such as insects. Under artificial rearing conditions, they can be fed either animal-based foods or plant-based foods, depending on what they like to eat and what they do not like to eat. And you also need to see how the results are, whether the hedgehogs are healthy and energetic, and whether their feces are normal. If everything is good and they can reproduce, it shows that the feed meets their needs. At this point, a rough feed table can be drawn up. Under artificial rearing conditions, animal-based feeds you can try include minced beef, minced mutton, minced camel meat, silkworm pupae, locusts, mealworms, etc., and you can add some milk, vitamins, calcium, salt and other trace elements. The key is to adapt to local conditions and decide according to the specific situation. Plant-based feeds can include steamed wowotou made from various melons, vegetables, grains and mixed flour, or you can give pelleted feed and raw mixed flour. The feeding amount likewise requires a period of exploration before it can be determined. In addition, hedgehogs are typical nocturnal animals, sleeping soundly during the day and coming out at night to forage. Therefore, feeding time should be after dusk, and after they become accustomed to artificial rearing, the time can gradually be moved earlier to 3 to 4 pm.
In winter, the temperature inside the pen must be kept above 10 to 15°C, so that the hedgehogs do not enter hibernation. If there are no conditions for keeping warm, then before winter arrives you can spread some clay or straw inside the pen, and the hedgehogs will dig holes by themselves and enter hibernation, so that you can leave them alone for the whole winter. When spring begins, after the hedgehogs wake up they will come out of the holes; at this time the earth mounds etc. should be cleared away, a disinfection should be carried out, and some fresh straw should be put in. In summer, when the temperature exceeds 32°C and it is rather stuffy and hot, water should be sprayed around the pen to lower the temperature, or a temporary shade awning should be added on top of their small house.