# Shaking hedgie after holding, stressed? fast heartbeat?



## Belie (Apr 24, 2013)

After I hold Chai and let him walk around in my hands I notice he feels like he is shaking/vibrating? I was wondering if it could caused by a fast heartbeat becuase he is nervous. I'll have him under a blanket on my lap and it feels like it's a fast heartbeat rhytm. I was told for socializing my hedgie it was best for him to walk in my hands even if we was nervous. Because if I just let him sleep in a blanket in my lap it wouldn't help the bonding enough? But he always seems to get stressed walking in my hands and he wants to get down. So i feel like making him walk in my hands isn't good...
I just want him to be happy and make sure the heartbeat thing is okay so he's healthy.
What are your opinions?


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## Belie (Apr 24, 2013)

How old is your hedgehog? 1 month 2 weeks 
- How long have you owned your hedgehog? A little over a week
- Has there been any changes in the 2-3 weeks? leaving the breeder on the 27th to live with me
- What is the temperature of the hedgehogs cage? between 75 and 77
- What is the lighting schedule? lights out at 10pm and on at 8am


Poop
- soft but formed
- colour normal
- smell normal
- Pooping in bed

Urine
normal, peeing in bed

Nose
sneezing - noticed a little last week but haven't since
Mucous - none noticed
Licking nose? yes

Breathing
normal from what I believe and closed mouth

Eating
- normally
- How many kibble per day? 1.5tsp
- Any difficulty crunching food? no
- Has there been a new food or treat recently and if so, how long ago? no
- Is the water the same as usual? same

Skin
Scratching – none
Dry skin – none
Sores –none
Rash – none
Quills - minor quill loss due to quilling

Vomiting 
none

Activity
normal, for a baby i think

Meds
none


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## Kelcey (Mar 28, 2013)

Shamus does the same thing sometimes. It's not because he's cold. His belly is always very warm. So, I don't know why they do that.


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## sklock65 (Jan 9, 2013)

I think it's normal. I've noticed it with Henry. Sometimes during the day if I'm cleaning his cage I will softly say something like "hi Henry!" and I can tell that it sort of startles him and I can tell he starts breathing much faster. Also sometimes when I am holding him or he is running around I can feel his heart beating faster, especially if he is really active and sniffing around. Not sure if this really answers your question...but at least your hedgie isn't the only one


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## Belie (Apr 24, 2013)

sklock65 said:


> I think it's normal. I've noticed it with Henry. Sometimes during the day if I'm cleaning his cage I will softly say something like "hi Henry!" and I can tell that it sort of startles him and I can tell he starts breathing much faster. Also sometimes when I am holding him or he is running around I can feel his heart beating faster, especially if he is really active and sniffing around. Not sure if this really answers your question...but at least your hedgie isn't the only one


it certainly makes me feel better to know i'm not alone and hopefully this is just normal!


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## Kelcey (Mar 28, 2013)

Makes me feel better to!


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## Annie&Tibbers (Apr 16, 2013)

Smaller animals usually have faster heart rates than larger ones. Theoretically, it works out to:
*Heartbeat rate (beats per minute) = 241 / fourth root of Body weight (kg)*

So, for a healthy human, heart rate is somewhere around 600-100 beats per minute, but a hedgehog's can be more than twice that much. Tibbers the 3-month-old marathon-running hedgehog from my earlier math-centric post currently weighs 267g = 0.267kg. Take the fourth root (or the square root twice if you don't have an engineering calculator!), and that's 0.71. 241/0.71 = 344 beats per minute (bpm) for a totally healthy, resting-but-awake heart rate. That's more than 3 times mine, so feels super-fast but is just fine.

Hedgehogs are generally not well-studied (siiiiigh), but a quick literature search puts a healthy adult-hedgehog heart rate around 150-300 bpm, so it looks like the math is probably ok-enough. If you want to actually measure your tiny friend's heart rate, count the beats in 10 seconds and multiply by 6 for the bpm. For practical context, 300bmp is way above any normal music tempos, off in a genre called "speedcore," so if you have any hope of tapping out your hedgehog's heartrate, it isn't too fast.


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