Hedgehog Central banner

How far/fast/long does your hedgie wheel?

9K views 19 replies 9 participants last post by  PJM 
#1 ·
So, I have set up bike pedometers on each of my hedgies wheels. I entered 957 milimeters as the size of the wheel (cake top wheel, 12 inches diameter).
Here are my results for the first night: We will see if these are totally off.

ZOEY: Didn't wheel at all. I checked & her wheel is fine & the pedometer is working. :cry: Will have to keep an eye on her. It is, however, one of Reaper's wheels & the sensor is a little farther away from the magnet than Cholla's CSW wheel.

CHOLLA: OK, tell me if this is crazy. He did 4 1/2 hours. Average speed of 2.9 & a total of 13.63 miles?!!??? :shock: I must have done something wrong. I can't believe he ran that much. If so, than I am a sorry, sad lump of a human. If my hedgie can run a 1/2 marathon & I can't make myself go around the block. :oops:

For those of you who keep track, feel free to post what your hedgie usually does. I think it would be interesting to know.
Edit: I had kilometers instead of miles. :oops: Actually ran 8.47 miles.
 
Discussion starter · #4 ·
Here's a link to the pages that show the pedometer & how to put it together. I was amazed at how easy it was, especially with Larry's wheel. Has a little slot the post on the magnet fits into perfectly.

viewtopic.php?f=20&t=4844&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=80

I think there has been a bit of inflation, however, because the same pedometer @ my walmart cost $15. But I still think it's well worth it. Especially if it will help you track their distance & time for health reasons.

I am so excited to be continually learning new things about these amazing citters. If Cholla did indeed run 13+ miles, he has my complete respect. No wonder all he wants to do is sleep on us. :lol:

edited to correct link
 
Discussion starter · #6 ·
When we had guests & moved Cholla into our room, I was amazed at how much he ran @ night. The only sounds I heard were the pitter patter of running hedgie feet & the loud "crunch, crunch, crunch" of a hedgie who eats with his mouth open. :lol: Thank goodness I slept through most of it!
 
Discussion starter · #8 ·
OK. I am officially bewildered & amazed & in total awe of Cholla. I reset the pedometer last night. Re-entered the wheel info & everything, just in case I had made a mistake the first time. Nope. My little man is a marathon running fiend! Here's last night's figures...
Distance - 8.08
Max speed - 4.1 mph
Time - 4 hours & 32 minutes.

Zoey, however, only spent 32 seconds on the wheel, but she got up to 4.4 mph.

I think that this is really good to know. I am going to try & cover Zoey's cage tonight & see if total darkness helps. She's in the office & there's a street light outside. Maybe that's the problem. But now that I know, we can try different things & see what works. Or maybe nothing is wrong & she just takes after me! :lol:

*edited to correct kilometers to miles :oops:
 
Discussion starter · #9 ·
Well, well. Here's another example of how wonderful & helpful this site is. From reading other posts, you find that some hedgies will not run on their wheels unless it is totally dark. We discovered last night that Zoey is that way.
She is currently in the office, under quarantine from Cholla intil her 30 days are up. There's a streetlight at the front of our house, so it would shine a bit in through the curtains.
Ever since we installed the pedometer, we noticed that she hardly ran at all. 32 seconds the other night.
We covered her cage up last night, so she would have complete darkness. Here's the results:
Distance - 2.34 miles
Max speed -4.2 mph
Total time: 2 hours & 8 minutes.

Obviously, 2+ hours is much, much better than 32 seconds. Thank you guys very much for all the help. Larry - help with the pedometer on the wheel. Puffers - help figuring out that Zoey needs complete darkness. A running hedgie is a happy hedgie! And a happy hedgie is a happy hedgie-mommy!! :D *edit spelling*
*edited to correct kilometers to miles :oops:
 
Discussion starter · #14 ·
goodbyemailbox said:
@PJM

Hi, I set up my wheel with the same settings that you used (957) because i found those on the site somewhere under a thread about bike odometers and that was the recommended size. After the first night, it showed that my hedgie ran about 9 miles and i was blown away. I couldn't believe it. Then I started questioning it because it seemed like a lot. I decided to double check the math, and 12 inches equates to 304mm. So my results were getting multiplied over 3 times as much as what he was really running. I reset the meter and entered 304 as the wheel diameter and it shows that he has been averaging around 2-4 miles a night. That's not to say that your hedgie can't run 13 miles in a night, but the inches to mm calculation for a 12' wheel should be 304.

Just an fyi.
I did make a mistake - but it was using kilometers instead of miles. :oops: Woops.
I have made the correction in the odometers. But that still is 8 miles a night. I agree, it still sounds like alot. But, then again, so does 4+ hours total of wheeling a night.

To double-check, I did go back to the instructions. It says to multiply the diameter of the wheel (12 inches =304.8 mm) by pi (3.1416) to get the circumfrence of the wheel. (=957.559 mm). And to enter that number into the odometer as the "wheel factor". It had a few examples, like 20 inch diameter wheel would equal 1596 mm in the wheel factor.

Let me know if I am missing anything.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top