HEDGEHOG INFORMATION - What To Do If You Find a Baby.

Information.  Baby Hedgehog Found in Garden

  A Hedgehog Story -   This is how we saved the life of one lonely little hedgehog.  We first met "Harry" when he appeared on our lawn one sunny day in October.  We had enjoyed the BBC 'Autumnwatch' programme a day or two before, especially all the information about hedgehogs and their hibernation needs.

 My husband Bob spotted the tiny creature first and carried him to me very carefully. Although he was a very small hedgehog, his prickles were very well developed!   We had learned from 'Autumnwatch ' that young hedgehogs from a late litter have a greatly reduced chance of surviving the winter compared with their older siblings.

 This is because they have not had time to store enough fat in their bodies to draw on when their natural supplies of food are short in very cold weather. This is when a mature hedgehog would normally go into hibernation, when their metabolism slows right down.  In this state of inactivity they are able to extract sufficient calories from their fat reserves to keep their systems ticking over till better times return.

We learned that a weight of at least 700 grammes is essential for a hedgehog to survive hibernation. We took our little one indoors and put him on the kitchen scales - he tipped it at just 210g. Something had to be done as the weather was getting colder and we hated the thought of him not making it through to Spring.

  We had self-interested motives too for wanting to ensure his survival. Our garden is a battlefield between us and battalions of marauding slugs and it would be great to have a hedgehog ally, perhaps a whole family of them in time!

 Also, the grandchildren turned up while we were deciding what to do  and were instantly smitten with him. Rather unimaginatively they christened him "Harry" on the spot.  So, of course, we kept him. (I say 'him' but of course we had no way of knowing if we were right and didn't fancy trying to find out, preferring to leave those investigations to other hedgehogs at other times.)

 We consulted the internet and found what we should do to keep our adopted infant happy, healthy and comfortable for as long as he needed us. We found a strong plastic crate, the kind issued by local councils for recycling waste, and up-ended a large cardboard box inside it as his sleeping quarters.

The weather was getting colder and he was very small so we put the whole thing in the kitchen, near a radiator, the warmest place in the house. We knew we'd need lots of bedding material and thought we'd had a brilliant idea when we hit on a plan to use piles of shredded paper from Bob's office.  It was a bad mistake!

  No matter how carefully we tried to arrange the stuff to appeal to Harry we never seemed to get it right.  He was extremely fussy and insisted on making his bed himself, over and over again, with the result that the kitchen became littered with annoying bits of paper which soon found their way all over the house.

Here's a video for you to see....click on the play button below.

If you are really interested in hedgehogs and wildlife have a look at this

hedgehog  etc...

In the end we opted for bags of straw from the local pet supply shop. Harry went through loads of it, dragging it into his sleeping box and forming it into a huge circular nest, fit for a giant hamster. No matter how much straw we put in his crate he still seemed determined to get every last shred into his sleeping box.  This still made a bit of a mess of course but somehow it didn't look quite so bad as all those little white paper shreds.

We wondered about how to feed Harry.  We already knew that the traditional bread-and-milk diet was a definite no-no.  Indeed any dairy foods should be off-limits to hedgehogs as their digestions are not designed to cope with them.  So all those folk tales about hedgehogs taking milk from cows lying down in the fields are just that, tales.

  After all, in the wild they like nothing more than a mouthwatering meat course of slugs, snails, beetles, earthworms and similar juicy morsels.  So, off we went to the pet supplies store once again to buy a selection of tinned cat food as recommended on the website we Googled.

  The store also sold little square tinfoil trays claiming to contain custom-made hedgehog dinners such as are sold for pampered cats.  Harry showed no marked preference for these and as they are expensive we dropped them from his bill of fare.

 We also bought a pack of special hedgehog food in dried form. This is highly recommended as it keeps the animal's teeth in good shape, preventing the formation of plaque which can be a problem if only soft food is provided. It also has the benefit of staying fresh longer than tinned food so it doesn't get smelly and attract flies. 

We found that Harry responded best to a varied menu containing both tinned and dried food. He also loved peanuts (not salted ones, obviously) and he would eat apple and other crunchy fruit though not raisins, banana and similar sticky things.

But above all, Harry adored mealworms. We bought these to put on the bird table but as soon as we tried Harry with a few he went berserk, scoffing them as if they were going out of fashion!  They're not cheap so we rationed him to one serving a day.  The birds just had to manage on other stuff for a while. 

 Of course we had to make sure that fresh water was available to him all the time.  This is especially important when dried food forms a large part of the diet. 

No matter what size or shape of bowl we provided for Harry's food he always ended up sitting in it or tipping it over or, usually, both.  Then he would go tramping through the remains of his meal and exploring his surroundings till he was ready to go back to bed for a nap.  After all, he was only a baby. 

 Just like any baby, Harry's bottom end and its productions needed a lot of attention, particularly as from day one he had a very healthy appetite!  We noticed that he tried to maintain a toilet area away from his feeding station at the far end of the crate and that he never soiled his sleeping quarters. I feel sure that a young hedgehog could be trained like a cat to use a litter tray.  However he was still lodging in the kitchen and needed thorough and regular cleaning out.

 Back to the pet store again for specialised cleaning, deodorising, anti-parasite, anti-everything products geared for animals and their surroundings. Again these were not cheap but having taken Harry on we felt we had to do a proper job.  Also we didn't fancy catching any little strangers from him so, in for a penny, in for a few pounds!  

We sprayed and scrubbed everything connected with Harry, including Harry himself, taking great care to arm ourselves with my thickest oven gloves as anything less would result in unwanted piercings!  He was much bigger now so we moved him into the little-used (in winter) downstairs shower room and installed him in the cubicle. 

 It was not as cosy as the kitchen had been and we thought it would help him to get used to slightly lower temperatures.  However he had more space to roam around in and lost no time in arranging the mountains of straw to his precise requirements, dragging every bit he could manage into his new cardboard bedroom.  

Harry was growing fast.  We weighed him regularly and soon he would hardly fit onto the scales!  This was no surprise as all he ever did was eat and sleep.  At the end of November he weighed in at 720 grammes, a gain of half a kilo in less than six weeks!

Now we found ourselves with a bit of a dilemma as we had a pre-Christmas trip booked to Northern Cyprus, a place we'd always wanted to visit, - but what about Harry?  The weather had fortunately grown milder and was forecast to remain so for a while so we decided to move him lock, stock and straw bale into our little greenhouse.

Our daughter would visit regularly with food and water and to keep a general eye on him.  All went well. The food disappeared and so did Harry, probably to the Hedgehog Hilton under our decking.  All we have to do now is to sit it out till Spring to welcome the return of our unexpected but very welcome guest, hoping to find him fit and well and raring to have a go at our slugs!

As soon as we see him again we will be in touch - watch this space!