Hedgehogs have a wide food spectrum and are not vegetarians. If you have an apple tree in your garden, you've probably wondered, do hedgehogs eat apples. Apples are not one of the main foods for a hedgehog, but every once in a while he treats himself to an apple.

Plant food for hedgehogs?

A hedgehog that is hungry will eat almost anything it finds. Do hedgehogs eat apples and Co. is therefore not a false statement. However, hedgehogs cannot digest plant food. The vegetable components of the food are usually excreted undigested. Occasionally, however, you will see a hedgehog eating an apple.

On the one hand, the rodents can quench their thirst with an apple or another piece of fallen fruit. But on the other hand, the hedgehog is more interested in the worm that is in the apple. Surely there are some hedgehogs who do not know exactly what is good for them. The hedgehog will then also eat an apple or other fallen fruit. Not least because the apple is sweet and hedgehogs have a great fondness for sweets.

Does the hedgehog collect apples?

You surely know one or the other children's picture or cartoon where hedgehogs eat apples or carry them on their spines into their burrow. The latter belongs to the realm of fables. Hedgehogs do not transport anything into their burrow, because they do not store anything for the winter. Transporting on their spines happens more by accident when they venture out of their hiding place. With spines erected to spear apples and the like, hedgehogs can't roll around.

Why hedgehogs eat the one or other time apples or other fallen fruit, you know now. You how do you find the fallen fruit? You already know that Hedgehog almost blind and perceive their surroundings rather dimly. This is where the small rodents' sense of smell comes into play. Surely you know that just fallen fruit exudes a very intense scent. This is mostly due to the rotting gases.

The hedgehog with its very good nose can smell this over many meters and thus specifically find the fallen fruit. Furthermore, he uses his groping hairs on the snout and nose to find the food. From this point of view, the statement that hedgehogs eat apples is definitely not wrong.

Hedgehogs eat apples only conditionally

With apples, hedgehogs are like us humans are with chocolate. It is sweet, but unhealthy. You can occasionally serve the hedgehog a ripe piece of banana. Hedgehogs also love small pieces of melon, here primarily the sugar melon. Other melons are usually spurned. To the question hedgehogs eat apples, experts will answer you: one yes and the other no.

The only important thing is that you do not serve apples and other fruits as a main meal, but rather as a snack. With the apples and the fruit with hedgehogs it is similar to us with the chocolate. No one can live exclusively on chocolate. If hedgehogs were to eat only apples or other fruit, there would be deficiencies and thus diseases.

In no case avocados for hedgehogs

Even though hedgehogs occasionally eat apples, you must not serve them avocados. The pit contains the poison persin, which can also be found in traces in the flesh. With the Mammal hedgehog this leads to heart muscle damage.