I thought it was rather late in the year for a hedgehog to be out so I parked up and went back to see if it was ok.
It seemed active and friendly, but I thought I'd take it home and weigh it in case it was an autumn juvenile that was too skinny and it needed feeding up for winter.
He wasn't at all shy and soon unrolled when I put him on the scales.
He came in at 314grams. That was much too skinny!
So he went into a crate with plenty of Pog's food, water and a hot water bottle wrapped in a towel under it to keep him warm. I put a smaller cardboard box in the crate so he's have somewhere to hide.
I named him Tig and then I left him in peace for the night. I could hear him crashing about and munching mealworms in the night, by morning he'd totally trashed the crate! XD
I rang Warwickshire Hedgehog Rescue and they said to bring Tig over to them.
Brian who runs Warwickshire Hedgehog Rescue was brilliant, he weighed Tig and got him settled in under a heat lamp as soon as we arrived. Tig was lucky, Brian had 14 hedgehogs in his garage and had only just got enough space to take Tig in because so many hedgehogs were coming in due to the mild winter!
He thought Tig might be from a 3rd litter due to the mild weather.
There is a lot of bad information given about how much a hog should weigh to survive hibernation and Brian likes all the hedgehogs he looks after to be 700 grams at the minimum for a hog heading to hibernation.
So remember folks, 700grams is the minimum a hedgehog should be when it's going into hibernation.
Also you should leave food out for hedgehogs even in winter because they can wake up needing a snack! So leave dry food out for them so it's there when they need it!
Brian has lots of brilliant hedgehog stories and so we spent ages chatting, and got to see a tiny hedgehog with a broken leg which was in plaster that Brian was caring for. He said the plaster was due off soon and that hedgehogs are very resilient!
Brian explained that all the hedgehogs that come to them get wormed and treated with antibiotics so that they can be fully healthy and focus on putting on weight rather than fighting parasites and diseases.
So we left Tig in Brian's expert care.
I called back the next week to check how Tig was doing and was pleased to hear he was already gaining weight and had gone to a foster carer who would look after him for the winter.
Then on Christmas Eve I received a phone call from Linda, the lady who was fostering Tig, she said he was doing really well. in two weeks he went from 314grams to 547grams! I later learned he had rather a rough ide, suffering from various illnesses before he was brought back to full health thanks to Linda's careful care.
Tig has been released back into the wild now. He didn't come back to my patch but is helping mix up the genetics of another hedgehog population.
Warwickshire Hedgehog Rescue and all the foster carers do fantastic work and I can't thank them enough for taking such good care of Tig and all the hedgehogs they look after.
It takes a lot of money as well as time to look after hedgehogs in need, you can donate directly on Warwickshire Hedgehog Rescue's Website or if you buy a Hedgehog Door, we are donating a percentage of our profits to help Hedgehog Rescues!
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