Terry Bellach feeds
Spike the porcupine
A Porcupine Named Spike
There’s a reason he’s called Spike. He may be just a baby, but he’s not cuddly. He’s playful and loves attention, but picking him up could be a thorny issue. Petting him isn’t out of the question, but it requires a certain degree of expertise. . .because Spike is a porcupine.
Five-week-old Spike looks like a beaver who’s having a bad hair day. His rounded body and flat, stubby tail are covered by sparse black guardhairs and thousands of quills.
“Porcupines are born with quills, which are soft and pliable at birth,” says Terry Bellach, who is caring for the orphan rodent. The Emerado, N.D., woman is a student at the University of Minnesota, Crookston (UMC). Even though she is majoring in equine industries management at UMC, last week she brought Spike to the college to share information on some of the finer points of porcupine physiology.
According to Bellach, “Within a couple hours [of birth], the quills dry and harden. Since Spike is only about a month old, his quills are pretty small so they don’t do much damage, although they can sting if you happen to get stuck with one.”
It’s the quills that give porcupines a bad rap, says Bellach. “Porcupines don’t throw quills, but when they’re frightened their muscles contract, and the quills stand straight up. If threatened, a porcupine will flick its tail and the quills will stick into whatever they touch.”
Dogs and cattle that encounter porcupines frequently end up with muzzles pincushioned with quills. Reverse barbs in the quills help them work their way into whatever they stick in. Oil produced in a porcupine’s skin makes the quills sting and fester if they’re not removed.
“The best way to remove the quills is with a pliers, and the quicker the better,” Bellach says.
Quick
is not a word often associated with porcupines, who spend most of their
lives perched in trees or lumbering from one tree to another.
Porcupines, which can be found in most wooded regions in North America,
eat the succulent inner bark of trees. They prefer jackpines in the
winter and poplars in the summer, when they’ll also snack on
berries. If a porcupine finds a particularly tasty tree, it can
strip the bark all the way around the trunk in a couple days.
For such sedentary animals, porcupines have voracious appetites. One porcupine can kill several acres of trees in a season.
Porcupines have few natural enemies – fishers are about the only animals able to kill them – so some areas become overpopulated. This came close to being Spike’s undoing.
Paul Syverson and his daughter, Cheyenne, were walking in the woods near their home in Bagley when he sighted a porcupine. “Dad was carrying a gun because the section was overpopulated with porcupines. We wanted to get rid of a couple that were destroying a stand of trees,” says Cheyenne, who is also a student at UMC. “Dad shot this big female. When we examined her, we realized she was pregnant so we did a c-section to save her baby.”
“I know it sounds harsh to shoot the mother and then raise the baby, but it’s a way of population control. Spike is the seventh baby my family took by c-section or found after the mothers were killed. We’ve raised the babies and turned them over to wildlife parks and zoos,” Cheyenne says. She emphasizes there is no profit motive. The young porcupines are given away when they are old enough to wean.
In the wild, porcupine females make dens in abandoned fox burrows, hollow logs, caves, and even abandoned buildings. Porcupines usually give birth to a single baby sometime in April. The mother will nurse the baby until it is weaned in mid-summer.
With Cheyenne attending UMC, her family wasn’t thrilled about hand raising the orphan porcupine. She mentioned the prickly problem to Terry Bellach, since both women are majoring in equine industries management and animal industries management.
“Cheyenne told me she needed a home for an orphan porcupine. Once I saw Spike, I was hooked,” Terry recalls. She admits she had some misgiving about how her household would react to adopting a porcupine. “My husband, Greg, and my son, Jon, had some doubts but after they fed Spike a couple of times, they warmed up to him. Now they absolutely love him. We all take shifts feeding him,” she says.
Spike has to be fed every four to six hours. He takes about four tablespoons of 2% milk warmed and mixed with light corn syrup from a bottle designed for a doll. “We also offer him apples, bananas and bread. As he gets older, we’ll be able to go for longer periods between feedings,” Bellach says. “Right now he has us on his schedule. First thing in the morning, he sings (a mewing sound much like a kitten) until we feed him. After that, he follows us around the house. He likes attention, and a few times he has tried to climb my pantleg when I’ve been too busy to play with him.”
She says Spike is very dependent, loving, and playful.
Occasionally, like any youngster, Spike has to be disciplined. If he nips too hard, even in play, Terry taps him on the nose. “ So far he hasn’t shown any aggression and the only time he even puffs up his quills is when he’s startled,” says Bellach.
Like most youngsters, Spike is curious and likes to explore. “He’s climbed our bookcase a couple times, but hasn’t figured how to get down again. He explores a little and then heads back to his pet carrier for a nap.”
Occasionally the Bellachs take Spike outside. “He likes to perch in a maple tree in our yard, but he doesn’t like being left alone for long. That’s something he’ll have to get used to since we can’t keep a porcupine in the house indefinitely,” Terry says.
Because they eat food that is difficult to digest, a porcupine has from 75 to 200 scats each day. A full-grown quill armored male porcupine can weigh between 30 and 40 pounds. With proper care and nutrition, it can have a life span of up to 30 years.
“We intend to keep Spike until the end of July, when he’s completely weaned,” Bellach says. At that time, he will be donated to the Winnipeg Zoo.
Greg Bellach has been in contact with the Dr. Wrigley, the head veterinarian at the Assiniboine Park Zoo. “Since the zoo only has two porcupines, Spike will be a welcome addition,” Terry says.
She has also contacted Scott Peltier of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. There’s a certain amount of red tape involved in moving a porcupine from the United States to Canada. It will take about two months to clear the paperwork.
Once Spike is relocated, Bellach says she has no plans to adopt another porcupine. “However, my vet has asked if we’d consider taking other types of wild critters. I said okay, but no skunks!”
Written by Twylla Altepeter for University Relations
Posted 05/02/2002
Contact: Andrew Svec,
218-281-8435