One night in September, I took my hound for a walk in the vineyard outside the town. The hound put its nose on the ground and sniffed, and suddenly barked. I walked over and saw a frightened hedgehog curled up there like a prickly ball. I decided to take it home and see how it hibernates.
I took off my sweater and threw it beside the hedgehog. I gently stuffed this little thing into my sweater with the tip of my boot, wrapped it up and took it home.
That night, I was sleeping when I heard a rolling sound from the kitchen. I went downstairs gently, pushed open the kitchen door and turned on the light. It's really interesting. It turned out that the hedgehog accidentally knocked over the bottle. It likes dull sounds and plays with bottles as balls. The next morning, I found that the milk bowl in front of me was empty and the beef was eaten up.
I read in a book that hibernation is not sleeping, and it has nothing to do with all the year round. Generally speaking, it is a natural phenomenon for animals to reduce physical exertion in the long winter and the season when food is not easy to find. If you put an animal in the refrigerator in July, it will hibernate. So low temperature is the main cause of hibernation.
Animals go into hibernation, their body temperature drops to adapt to the surrounding temperature, and other physiological functions are also weakened. For example, a sober hedgehog breathes about 50 times per minute, and hibernates up to eight times, sometimes only once, or even for a few minutes. The conscious hedgehog's heartbeat is 200 times per minute, and it is reduced to 20 times during hibernation.
I'm not familiar with this little thing. I can't put my ear on its chest to calculate its heartbeat. I'm afraid it won't let me put a thermometer in its nostril to take temperature. I have to use other methods to test how this prickly friend hibernates.
Hedgehogs like to find a cave outdoors underground, or get into a pile of leaves to hide and hibernate. I put it in the cellar and put a bowl of milk and a plate of beef next to a bamboo basket full of fine shavings. I thought the hedgehog would lose its appetite below 15 degrees Celsius and fall asleep in the fine shavings. The result is not like this at all. It seems to be more interested in eating than sleeping. When the temperature dropped to 12 degrees Celsius, it still refused to sleep in the bamboo basket and poked the shavings on the ground with its thorns. After a while, the milk and beef used in the experiment were gone. It turns out that I feel cold and need to eat more to keep my body temperature. It tried to drive away hibernation.
Until one morning, when the temperature dropped to seven degrees Celsius, I went to the cellar for routine observation, but I couldn't hear the hiss of the hedgehog swinging, and it finally fell asleep.
Half a month later, hedgehogs huddled together and slept soundly, with their small noses exposed from the thorns. I took away the fine shavings and it didn't respond. I believe that even if it is picked up, it will not wake up, at least not immediately.
From the third week, I checked the bamboo basket and everything was the same. I just turned to leave when suddenly the flashlight came out and there was a small pool of water on the ground.
The cellar has been very dry. Where does the water come from? Take a closer look and find its footprints on the concrete floor between the small beach water and the bamboo basket. I'm sure it peed. I'll bring milk and beef right away and put them near the bamboo basket. The next morning, I found that both milk and beef were gone.
Hedgehogs wake up every two or three weeks. If there is a small pool of water on the ground, I know it is time to prepare food for it. It will eat some milk and beef-sometimes more, sometimes less, and then go back to sleep. The temperature in the cellar has been stable all winter, always around seven degrees Celsius.
In March of the following year, the sun was shining brightly. I took the hedgehog and bamboo basket out of the cellar and put them in a warmer garage so that the sun could shine on them. One night, I heard the sound of the bottle rolling again-I put it there, as a signal, the hedgehog looked strong. I am glad that I can spend this winter safely.
I asked my little friend good morning, but I didn't expect to hit a big nail. It screamed fiercely at me. The old friendship is gone, and it has become an animal in wild at heart. So I wrapped it in an old sweater and sent the prickly ball back to where I found it.