A phonecall to the Hedgehog preservation society

I phoned the Hedgehog preservation society for some advice yesterday and learnt a lot about Autumn juveniles, as Hetty is official known.

I was getting a bit jittery about what to do, how to do it and whether we were doing all we could to help Hetty survive.

After ascertaining whether of not we were willing to look after Hetty or whether we wanted to get someone else to take care of her, the first thing this wonderful and knowledgeable lady told me was not to be surprised if everything seemed to be going well and then one day Hetty just died unexpectedly.

:(

Apparently the odds of an autumn juvenile surviving are much slimmer than their summer cousins. She said that numerous people ring her up asking her what they did wrong because they have a dead hedgehog on their hands, but she assured me this is common and it just happens for no apparent reason.

So with that reality check out of the way I went on to ask my questions:

What should I be feeding our orphaned hoglet?
Should a baby hedgehog be having milk?
She keeps going under the fire, is she too cold?
What if a hoglet gets too cold?
Will a hoglet wee or poo in their own nests?
Can a hedgehog pass on any diseases to humans?
Do hedgehogs lose their prickles (spines)?
Do hedgehogs bite?

I'll type the answers up tomorrow. Hetty gets quite loud at 1:30am with rearranging her bedroom furniture and I'm too tired to type much today!

Hetty has moved house

Hetty's moved house.

No don't worry, we still have her here; loved, fed and watered. But you remember the wooden apple box she was living in? Well they have carrying handles and we've discovered that 5oz hoglets can squeeze themselves through carrying handles and escape around the house!

We popped out again yesterday, but this time we learned from past mistakes and put a lid on top of her house.

But oh no. Hetty is evidently a long distance cousin of Houdini and we found her missing again when we got back.

This time she was lying under the woodburner looking a bit sorry for herself. (That's the pic at the top).

Half an hour later she was lying on a piece of wood underneath the fire with her body pushed right up against the bottom of the fireplace.

The poor mite must have been freezing.

So she now has new housing. It's a plastic box with high sides and no carrying handles! We've made some holes in the lid for her to breathe. And we're yet to see if she can escape through the breathing holes.

Apparently a fully grown adult hedgehog can get through a 4 inch square gap, so it's no surprise Hetty got out of her apple box in search of warmer pastures.