All About Hedgehogs

One warm night in September, after I had locked-up our four chickens as usual at dusk, I took a walk in the gloaming with a torch, only to find six or seven hedgehogs making their way from the beck side, where they hide in the day, to my nearby vegetable garden. Two were biggish adults and the other four were juveniles-hoglets in the jargon. Being aware that young hedgehogs need to achieve a body weight of about 250-300 grams to survive an average winter, I noted that two of the juveniles were much too small to have reasonable chance of surviving during hibernation when a lot of body weight is lost. A quick call to the brilliant staff at the Craven Wildlife Rescue Centre in Horton in Ribblesdale confirmed the Centre would happily take any underweight hoglets. Fortunately, I managed to capture the two smallest the following night, pop them into a cat basket with their toothbrushes, and drive them to the Centre.

A helpful volunteer registered them both (identified with the impromptu names of Cross and Blackwell), weighed them (see image), de-ticked them (a revolting but necessary job) and then found them a suitable cage amongst numerous other fellow underweight hoglets in the Centre’s bespoke hedgehog hotel.

I am hoping to collect them at Christmas-once they have put on enough weight.
Meanwhile the remaining hedgehogs have been enjoying being fed each night delicious cat food (no fish flavours thank you very much) and ground-up peanuts. It is a real privilege to see these wild creatures appearing out of the night to feed and then disappear back into the undergrowth as quickly as they arrived.

Here are some things I have learned about these little creatures lately:
1. They can run pretty quickly to get away from danger.
2. They can be unfurled if you tickle them on their back
3. They like (unsalted) peanuts but the nuts must be ground-up finely. (Whole nuts can stick in their throats and choke them)
4. Hedgehogs don’t always hibernate depending on the food available and winter weather.

There are one or two spots in the garden used by hibernating hedgehogs last year and these places are now (November) being monitored by me, but so far no takers. If readers of this article would like to observe these charming creatures feeding at dusk before they hibernate, please get in touch.

Graham Cleverly