I've become the local hedgehog rescuer

[Chrissy]

On Thursday of last week we spotted something small moving in the grass service strip next to the road. It was 2pm on a a bright sunny day. On investigating we found it was a baby hedgehog (or a hoglet to give it it's correct name). Very unusual for one to be out on it's own on a hot sunny day next to a road so we searched the nearest bush for a nest and didn't find one. It's a busy enough road and there are many cats around. I picked it up and brought it over to our back garden and installed it in our regular hedgehog feeding box. Then within a short period of time there was another one so we did the same thing with that. They were both very hungry and thirsty and tucked into our hedgehog food. We've had no reasonable rain for over 3 weeks. We weighed both and they were 66 and 67grams. Underweight for babies that looked about four weeks old that could eat and lap well.

A guy from a house nearby said he had seen one further along the road but after searching I didn't find it. We had noticed that our regular hedgehog visitor hadn't been for supper for about 3 weeks so were suspicious that this was the mother and wondered why she wasn't around anywhere.

On Saturday we spotted another baby heading towards the road at about 7pm so we picked up that one too. It looked smaller than the two we had rescued on Thursday.

Today we weighed all three. The latest and smallest one weighs 67grams and the original two weigh 88 and 90grams. So they have been eating very well. The smallest one might be a male and the others might be females but it's difficult to tell at this age especially as they are a bit shy and ball up when I try to look :(

Today we cleaned out their new hedgehog box and feeding box that my OH now known as Heath Robinson has joined together with a corridor between them. Here's a pic of our new temporary family. :) They went out on the lawn today for a run around. That was great exercise for all of us!

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[TSherbs]

How dear!

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[TSherbs]

What's in the food?

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[Wile E Coyote]

What's in the food?

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Purina® Hedgehog Chow, what else would you feed a hedgehog?

[TSherbs]

Musta been teatime, cuz Chrissy busted out the nice bowl in the top pic!

[Chrissy]

We started off by wetting our regular Spike dry hedgehog food then the next day we went to the local pet shop and bought 2 cans of Spike's Hedgehog Scrummy Meaty Supper to see if they liked it. Now need to buy more. The first dish was my little Isle of Wight collectable dish LOL then I substituted a couple of plastic ones that I found. :) Very soon we're going to need a bigger dish....

[TSherbs]

...Spike's Hedgehog Scrummy Meaty Supper....

:D

perfection from the marketing department

[Yazeh]

Such an uplifting story, Chrissy, thanks.

Soon they'll be using the amenities and you can check if they're boys or girls ;)
https://media3.giphy.com/media/3xz2BCohVTd7h2Kvfi/200.webp?cid=ecf05e471d7i7z9er5rg8ldgz3e3fvo3vhoyk 5ofu7l2uy16&rid=200.webp&ct=g

[Lloyd]

I'm in Massachusetts. Can you mail me one? If so, please include instructions so that I can tell which is the feeding end and which is the "output" end.

Typos courtesy of Samsung Auto-Incorrect™

[Chrissy]

I'm in Massachusetts. Can you mail me one? If so, please include instructions so that I can tell which is the feeding end and which is the "output" end.

Typos courtesy of Samsung Auto-Incorrect™
Sadly not :( The European hedgehog is a protected species here in the UK and these three will be released as soon as they are heavy enough to survive on their own.
The feeding end looks more cute. :)

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[arrow]

Oh, something must have happened to the mother. Hedgehogs are nice to have around. Make sure they are closer to 700 grams before winter, if less than that, they don't survive winter dormancy. I have heard people rescue small hedghogs that wake up in winter and keep them indoors. I don't know much about hedgehogs at all, but the last few years I have heard of people rescuing them and a guy down the street gives the locals ones cat food at night.

[Deb]

You are blessed with hedgehogs, Chris. I hope these ones hang around when they are grown up. They are so cute!

[Chrissy]

Oh, something must have happened to the mother. Hedgehogs are nice to have around. Make sure they are closer to 700 grams before winter, if less than that, they don't survive winter dormancy. I have heard people rescue small hedghogs that wake up in winter and keep them indoors. I don't know much about hedgehogs at all, but the last few years I have heard of people rescuing them and a guy down the street gives the locals ones cat food at night.
Yes they have to weigh a minimum of 650 grams before they can survive hibernation. They seem to be going in the right direction fairly quickly. :)

[Chrissy]

You are blessed with hedgehogs, Chris. I hope these ones hang around when they are grown up. They are so cute!
Fingers crossed they do. :) I'm sure we've been feeding their mother every evening for quite some time before she sadly disappeared. :(

[Marsilius]

New Diamine Ink?: Chrissy's House Hedgehog?

[Wile E Coyote]

New Diamine Ink?: Chrissy's House Hedgehog?

If she'd just mail one to Lloyd, we could get Baystate Hedgehog.

[TSherbs]

Hey, don't joke about Chrissy's critters!

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[Chip]

Cool! Never actually seen one. Do the quills have barbed tips, like those on a porcupine?

After one go, cats and dogs leave them alone.

[jar]

Our hedgehogs are not quite as cute and have long tails.

[Chrissy]

Cool! Never actually seen one. Do the quills have barbed tips, like those on a porcupine?

After one go, cats and dogs leave them alone.
No but they are very spiky, stiff and sharp. Even at this age one of them "huffs" loudly when picked up and they all currently curl up into a tight ball. Even with gloves on a spine can stick into a finger and it hurts but there are no barbs or poison thank goodness.

[Chrissy]

How interesting it will be to see them grow up. Sad with the mother, something must have happened to her. I see hedgehogs almost daily this time of year. Passing cars are the worst danger. My neighbour feeds the local hedgehogs cat food, and they come around every night for it. I think the small ones must reach close to 700 grams as a minimum weight to survive winter. Last year there were stories of small hedhogs in trouble late in auntum. They survived in a family's home, and was awake all winter and was let out in spring.
Cars are the main danger here too also the fact that their access to countryside and gardens is diminishing. They don't all stay in hibernation for the whole duration but wake up fairly regularly and come out for a bit of food.

Cat or kitten food is a good source of food for adults and youngsters. We had to make a special feeding box in order to ensure the hedgehogs could easily get in and eat it but access was a bit too twisty for cats.

At the right time of year our regular hedgehog visitor could be seen travelling across the lawn to the box every evening until she stopped coming and one evening two of them came out of the same box.

[Chrissy]

Our hedgehogs are not quite as cute and have long tails.
I went and checked on Wikipedia and was surprised to find that there aren't any species of hedgehog left in the US now. That's a shame:(

[amk]

They grow very fast. We had Junior for a while, though he was almost full grown so we didn't need to keep him long, and then Generalissimo who was covered in fly eggs and mites - fortunately we have a local vet who specialises in hedgehogs and gave us a hedgehog version of Frontline to get rid of the parasites. Generalissimo was tiny, about the same size as your Chrissy, and after about a month was nearly 700g. He ate like a pig. No table manners at all. I would not have trusted him with the best china!

[Empty_of_Clouds]

Dan Antopolski at the 2009 Edinburgh Fringe (a festival for comedey) won the award with:

Hedgehogs - why can't they just share the hedge?

:)

[Chrissy]

They grow very fast. We had Junior for a while, though he was almost full grown so we didn't need to keep him long, and then Generalissimo who was covered in fly eggs and mites - fortunately we have a local vet who specialises in hedgehogs and gave us a hedgehog version of Frontline to get rid of the parasites. Generalissimo was tiny, about the same size as your Chrissy, and after about a month was nearly 700g. He ate like a pig. No table manners at all. I would not have trusted him with the best china!
I watched an episode of Mountain Vets last week and the head vet at their animal rescue place had three that were handed in. She took them home and was fortunate enough to have a large dog crate from the centre to keep them in and at five months old she had a football shaped male that she called "Fatty" that was the first one she released. If they get too overweight then they can have problems curling up into a ball tight enough to keep predators off so it can be a fine line. She showed how she mixed their food that consisted of tinned cat food plus some grated carrot and some oats served in a fairly large, flattish dish, then she tipped on a jug of milk and said they eat it all!

By comparison I've borrowed some puppy panels from next door that join together to make a hexagonal shaped pen. Yesterday when we put it on the lawn all three of them were pushing themselves through the bars and we were trying to steer them away from the garden borders. It must have looked quite funny. :)

[jar]

Our hedgehogs are not quite as cute and have long tails.
I went and checked on Wikipedia and was surprised to find that there aren't any species of hedgehog left in the US now. That's a shame:(

Yup. No hedgehogs native to the Americas and yes, it is a shame.

[Wile E Coyote]

Our hedgehogs are not quite as cute and have long tails.
I went and checked on Wikipedia and was surprised to find that there aren't any species of hedgehog left in the US now. That's a shame:(

Yup. No hedgehogs native to the Americas and yes, it is a shame.

Yes, but we have armadillos. Armored balls vs spiky balls.

[jar]

Our hedgehogs are not quite as cute and have long tails.
I went and checked on Wikipedia and was surprised to find that there aren't any species of hedgehog left in the US now. That's a shame:(

Yup. No hedgehogs native to the Americas and yes, it is a shame.

Yes, but we have armadillos. Armored balls vs spiky balls.

Really? Around here they are usually more like pancakes than bocci balls.

[Joseph H]

That's great Chrissy! In London, we see foxes and the occasional drunken rat. I think my boys were surprised to see a real hedgehog out in the country - I'm not sure they'd realised they were real animals :)

[Chrissy]

That's great Chrissy! In London, we see foxes and the occasional drunken rat. I think my boys were surprised to see a real hedgehog out in the country - I'm not sure they'd realised they were real animals :)
I've seen fewer foxes than hedgehogs here, but I hear them at night. As long as we are only talking furry animals - I've never seen a drunken rat. LOL

Reminds me of our rat story. Once we saw a rat in our garden during broad daylight. It must have been an escapee because it was a dark ginger colour with white underneath. It kept eating my bird food for days and in the end my OH bought a rat trap and set it behind the greenhouse. A couple of days later I thought the trap had moved position and when I looked the trap had gone off but the rat was just laying there beside it with no visible injuries apart from a small dot of blood on its nose. I was absolutely terrified and phoned OH. He told me to pick it up and throw it in the bin but I was too scared to do that in case it woke up. I came inside and got my grabber but this was such a huge rat it was difficult to pick it up with that. I somehow eventually managed to get it into a plastic bag that I knotted several times before placing it in the bin. Just in case it woke up.

[Lloyd]

@Chrissy Have you seen this story?
https://people.com/baby-hedgehog-rescued-woman-pom-pom-8620901

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[Chrissy]

Yes Lloyd, Thanks for asking. ;) It really made me laugh when we saw it on the BBC News yesterday.

Call us cynical but our take on it was that it was specially made for the Internet just to get loads of views. A real hedgehog neither looks nor feels absolutely anything like the soft pom pom from a woolly hat as my hands and fingers can frequently attest to. :rolleyes:

[dneal]

I'd plant a whole hedge if I could grow me some hedgehogs.

[Chrissy]

We have a movement operated camera that we had to put out as every last granule of the hedgehog food started disappearing every night. A rat turned out to be the culprit and following some serious planning and restrictions of "hedgehog access" to part of the yard we were successful in getting rid of that. :)

Now a male hedgehog seems to have found his way into the garden (under the gate) and he seems to be less interested in eating and more interested in the fact that the two hedgehogs that live here are females. LOL

[Lloyd]

We have a movement operated camera that we had to put out as every last granule of the hedgehog food started disappearing every night. A rat turned out to be the culprit and following some serious planning and restrictions of "hedgehog access" to part of the yard we were successful in getting rid of that. :)

Now a male hedgehog seems to have found his way into the garden (under the gate) and he seems to be less interested in eating and more interested in the fact that the two hedgehogs that live here are females. LOL
I wonder if he'll be attracted to a gray pompom.

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