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We tracked the weights of a group of female hedgehogs during pregnancy to see if we could use weight to reliably tell us if a hedgehog is pregnant. We weighed the mother hedgehogs on the first date that we put them with the males, then once a week afterward. Out of the group of females, there were 11 who birthed between 35 and 37 days. These 11 were included in our data. The starting weights of the females ranged from 264 to 492 grams. 

Table 1 shows the high, low, and average weights at each weekly weigh in. Weight difference from start to finish ranged from a low of 54 grams to a whopping high of 266 grams. The average weight gain was 128 grams. 

Table 1. Actual Weights

Table 2 shows how the weight was distributed across the 5 week time span, based on the average weekly weights.

Table 2. Distribution of weight gain across week, based on sample mean.

During the first week, weight gain was 13 grams. The typical pattern was that about 10% of the weight gain occurred during week 1, 20% during week 2, 20% during week 3, 25% during week 4, and the remaining 25% during week 5. There was considerable variation in the amount of weight gain, but the general pattern of weight gain increasing as the pregnancy increased held true for most of the mothers.