A sick hedgehog joined our growing menagerie on Wednesday. I haven’t seen one close up for years, only a few unfortunate squashed individuals on the doorstep. It was the archetypal ‘Mrs Tiggywinkle’ with sparkling eyes and a wet snuffling nose. Well that was on day two, on day two it looked totally dejected.
It quickly rolled into a ball when we picked it up, displaying it’s wonderful anti-predation tactic. This evolutionary behaviour is ingenious, but doesn’t outwit a car.
Being given this sick hedgerow sparked a home-school project with our 3 and 5 year olds. Because there is loads we can do to help these gorgeous little hogs that crunch on snails and slugs for a past time, so being the perfect garden companion.
Avoiding using slug pellets is key- as they eat them or the dead slugs/snails and die.
Plus providing log piles and hedgerows, shrubs etc. and taking care to check for hedgehogs if you have to cut vegetation/ burn it.
After two days, one night, snails, slugs and lots of scats later(!) it looked better, so we decided to return it to the wild where there was lots of habitat in our garden, fields and woods beyond.
For more information on hedgehogs see: https://www.britishhedgehogs.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Hedgehog-Street-HEMP-guide.pdf
To report your sightings of live or dead hedgehogs see: https://bighedgehogmap.org/