# Jumping/falling



## haleylove

I looked in the archives a bit but didn't seem to find anything.
I notice a lot of you take our your hedgies for play/cuddle time on the couch.
I was wondering, do they ever try to climb/jump off? 
I know that not very much height is needed for a hedgehog to get injured in a fall.


----------



## MissC

Yes, some <ahem> Snarf, constantly try to squirm/dig/claw/jump/leap out of and off of arms, sofas, blankets, tables, counters and laps. Snarf is great when he wants to cuddle. He sleeps like a log but when he's had enough he is exhausting. I cannot believe someone so small can cause such a brew-ha.

Firstly, they don't have great depth perception (in general) so will happily walk off the edge of a couch without a second thought. Secondly, they typically want to get to where they were going and they do. not. want. to. be. stopped. or. touched. thank. you. very. much. Thirdly, they don't appreciate sudden sounds or movements.

So...you have a stubborn and/or curious little hedgie intent on seeing what's over 'there' about to step off the edge of a two foot drop and an owner dying a thousand deaths trying to grab said hedgie who instantly quills up and gets ornery, usually using a fairly loud expletive or two, and now that hedgie is VERY angry and twice as determined to get going. Now. AND is impossible to touch. It's awesome.

Not that I know any of this from experience.


----------



## HedgehogsAnonymous

From my understanding hedgehog quills have something inside them that acts as a shock absorber if they do fall, prevents them from hurting themselves too badly as long as they ball up.


----------



## PJM

HedgehogsAnonymous said:


> From my understanding hedgehog quills have something inside them that acts as a shock absorber if they do fall, prevents them from hurting themselves too badly as long as they ball up.


I remember seeing that too. 
I think it's like hibernation. The ones in the wild can do it, but I think they've lost the ability/instinct in our little guys.


----------



## firephoenixla

Falls are definitely bad for hedgehogs, but for some reason they don't seem very good at stopping themselves from running off of edges, or at least Paprika doesn't.. and MissC is right, if you try to put a hand up to stop them or to keep them from going a certain direction they will just run in that direction faster and faster every time you pull them back.. they're like those wind-up toy cars that get more energy when they're pulled backwards across the bedspread.. I've never met a more stubborn animal, and since there is no way to refocus or reprimand them you're pretty much stuck grabbing them over and over to keep them from falling as they get angrier and angrier about being told no :/
I had a scare about a month or so back when I was standing in the kitchen with Paprika cupped securely in my hands and we were doing fine and she randomly decided, "I'm going to jump!" and she just hopped sideways and started to fall and being that I'm 5'10'' that's a pretty far fall, but somehow with my ninja-like reflexes I swung down and grabbed her about a foot from the floor, Oi! my heart was pounding and I was freaking out, but she was completely unfazed, its like the fall and subsequent death-imparting landing didn't even register for her and she was still squirming around trying to get out of my hands.. needless to say she spend the rest of the night wrapped up in a hedgiebag breathing through the corner seam after that nearly ill-fated incident :/


----------



## Immortalia

My boy has fallen off my lap....but I managed to catch him before he reached the ground.... with my bare hands.......and then plopped him back into my lap, then proceeded to put him down in his play pen, and run my hand under cold water :roll: 

For the most part, and from what I have read, our hedgies tend to fly off things in a superman pose. 

And I've read about the hedgehog quills thing too, but I think it's a European hedgehog thing, rather than an APH thing. Or, for all we know, only one person have ever seen a hedgehog fall off something, roll into a ball, land, and continue rolling. Then they copyrighted it and made Sonic, and claimed that all hedgehogs do it. :lol: 

If you have a hedgie who's sole intent is to explore, you are better off making a LARGE playpen, and sit on the ground inside the playpen with your hedgie. Or just sit on the ground, rather than the couch, bed, etc etc.


----------



## Nebular

Norman has taken a fall or two by blundering off my my lap while I was sitting on the floor. It seemed like he was expecting there to just be another step there (you'd think he'd learn after the first or second time). If you put a hand in his way to keep him from just walking off of something, he'll climb said hand and keep on going. So I've stopped doing that too. I have a 4' x 4' blanket that I let him run around on if he's really keen on running around like an idiot, but I sit beside it and keep a constant eye on him. If you move him away from something, like firephoenixla said, he'll just run towards it even faster when you put him down.

It seems that the couch is the only thing where he won't just blindly walk off the edge. He'll run around and explore it, peer over the edge, decided against jumping, explore some more, then get tired and crawl back into my lap.

I make sure I have him wrapped up nice and snugly in my shirt before I move him from my room to wherever I'm taking him. I've tried just carrying him in my hands but he gets really squirmy and wants to see what's going on when I do that. There have been a few close calls as he wriggled out of my palms and nearly slipped out. :?


----------



## MissC

Snarf did a beautiful swan dive out of my hands the other night. I was just about to put him in his cage...he was all safe & calm and nestled in my hands, then WHOOOOOSH! He was in mid-air, just like a freakin' trapeze artist. I 'caught' him with my chest, or <ahem> bodacious bosom, if you prefer, bouncing him off the edge of his cage and into his water dish, then out again, where he promptly curled up and went to sleep. :roll:


----------



## mcwojo

I've read the same but when I get Hazel up to snuggle all she wants to do is sleep. She never wanders around. She is in her hedgie bag and sleeps. I'll pet her and she'll jump and huff. That's ALL she does. She is only 13 wks so I don't know if that has anything to do with it but right now she if pretty boring!!! She did more exploring when she was little but now all she wants to do is sleep except for when I'm not around and at night. YIKES :roll:


----------



## Puffers315

If I'm not mistaken in the wild a hedgehog has the natural instinct of rolling into a ball when it falls and using their quills as a cushion. Sadly our guys have lost that instinct, which is why falls are worse, they just kind of plop.

My first hedgehog Vera-Lee is the only one who has fallen on me, and that was off my desk and into my hand, she still hit the floor but I more or less stopped her 3/4th of the way down enough to slow her speed from critical mass to a slight flop. Thankfully she was alright.


----------



## haleylove

firephoenixla said:


> they're like those wind-up toy cars that get more energy when they're pulled backwards across the bedspread..


 :lol: I can picture that.

Thanks for the input everyone.


----------



## mtnwmn

Puffers315 said:


> If I'm not mistaken in the wild a hedgehog has the natural instinct of rolling into a ball when it falls and using their quills as a cushion. Sadly our guys have lost that instinct, which is why falls are worse, they just kind of plop.


Have hedgehogs really been kept as pets long enough for them to lose instincts?

It was my understanding that it's not that they lost some instinct, rather that falls will be dangerous both in the wild and domestically... As I understood it, the air in the quills helped pad them, but even if they fell on their quills, there was a distinct possibility that the fall caused internal bleeding, broken bones (as in any animal falling), or even having a quill be pushed the wrong way and causing organ damage. The difference, as I understood it, was that since our hedgehogs were ours, we noticed when they got hurt. :?


----------



## Immortalia

mtnwmn said:


> Have hedgehogs really been kept as pets long enough for them to lose instincts?
> 
> It was my understanding that it's not that they lost some instinct, rather that falls will be dangerous both in the wild and domestically... As I understood it, the air in the quills helped pad them, but even if they fell on their quills, there was a distinct possibility that the fall caused internal bleeding, broken bones (as in any animal falling), or even having a quill be pushed the wrong way and causing organ damage. The difference, as I understood it, was that since our hedgehogs were ours, we noticed when they got hurt. :?


Well... APH aren't found in the wild. So.... There's not much to really base anything on, other than that it's not something we would want to risk.

But yes, it's also very likely that it becomes a gamble everytime any hedgie falls off something. There have been several cases of APH's falling off ledges, getting bumps and bruises, yet surviving, while others fall a few inches and end up dying. I'm sure it's the same in the wild, we're just not always there to document it.


----------



## Quilled1

Their ability to hibernate was basically 'bred' out of them. Why not survival instincts? I'd think the ground outside would be more dangerous with all the rocks and sticks they could fall on.


----------



## Puffers315

Indeed, like Immortalia said, our guys are more or less a hybrid of two species (Algerian and African), so there's breeding factors that have caused these problems, such as being able to hibernate but not survive. Its like the fact that the original pet AP hedgehogs use to average 1000+ grams in weight but were bred down to their current size. You start messing with genetics like that, it does cause problems.


----------



## Quilled1

Puffers315 said:


> You start messing with genetics like that, it does cause problems.


Will their species continue to degrade like that? :| 
Did the breeding even cause things like WHS?


----------

