# Keeping up with a hedgehog



## Annie&Tibbers (Apr 16, 2013)

So, a few people have posted how to measure the distance your hedgehog runs on his or her wheel at night. It looks like most people use that info for curiosity, or to keep track of hedgehog-health.

How about using it as a challenge?

The easy way is to go distance-for-distance with your hedgehog. That's on order of 1-10 km/night for most hedgehogs, so theoretically manageable distances for humans to walk/run/bike in a day (although some of us might curse our little hoglet's stamina). For an added layer of complexity, you can try to beat their time, too.

A far more intimidating option is to match them footstep for little pitter-pattering footstep. To do this, we need to calculate the total footsteps taken, so the distance divided by the stride length. For quadrupedal mammals, stride length is somewhere between 1.1 and 1.25 times the acetabular distance (length from hip to shoulder); our little spikeballs are typically booking it with a flat-footed loping stride so I'd guess 1.25 is a better estimate. Acetabular distance will vary by hedgehog (I know you're just dying for your friend to wake up so you can measure!) but from looking at the average weight/size thread it's probably around 5-10cm. The final equation is: *footsteps = odometer distance/(1.25 x acetabular distance)
*
My tiny Tibbers ran 2.6km in 2.25 hours last night. The distance from his hip to shoulder is 7cm, so that's (2600 m / 1.25 x 0.07 m) = 29,714 footsteps. For a human, it's about 2,000 footsteps per mile, so 1,250 footsteps per kilometer. If I were to match my hedgehog step-for-step, I'd need to run just under 28 kilometers.

For a bit of perspective: Marathons are 42.195km (26.22 miles) long, with the current world records set at 2 hours, 3 minutes for men or 2 hours, 15 minutes for women. Scaled for size, my hedgehog ran 2/3s of a marathon, and would beat anyone with a pace slower than 3 hours, 24 minutes.

Conclusion: I am pathetically out of shape compared to my hedgehog.


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## AlexONeil (Nov 14, 2012)

No truer words have been spoken. My boys run laps around me.


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## alexvdl (Dec 19, 2012)

I'm very much impressed with your math, especially considering the brainpower enlisted to calculate useless information. That's not an insult, by the way. I really am greatly impressed and entertained by it. Bravo!


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## tiggyboyd (Mar 7, 2013)

I was just wondering how you do work out how far/long your hedgie runs for at night? Do you have to buy something to put onto their wheel?


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## JulieAnne (Sep 3, 2012)

I put an odometer on Prims wheel but it stopped working and I haven't gotten a new one yet. She was averaging 6-7 miles a night! I definitely felt like a total fatty!


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## MrPinball (Feb 23, 2013)

Wow I am totally impressed by your math too!! And yes my hedgehog could outrun me anytime haha


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## Annie&Tibbers (Apr 16, 2013)

I use a bicycle odometer attached to the wheel to measure distance. I use the Filzer dZ2L Cycling Computer ($15 at Mec), but anything that automatically activates will work.

Tibbers' co-caretaker laughs at me for obsessively quantifying my hedgehog ("He's a pet, not a project!"), but I'm totally fascinated by how my seemingly-pudgy, lazybones is actually a marathon running superstar under the deceptive layer of quills.


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