Tiny, Tiny Hogs

Baby hedgehog season is truly in full flow at the Rescue. Here's how we care for some of our most challenging charges.

Hedgehogs usually give birth to four or five young in June and July, usually only weaning two or three babies successfully. Young hedgehogs will leave the nest when they are around three to four weeks old to go on foraging trips with their mother. After around ten days of foraging with their mother the young will wander off on their own. They usually weigh around 250g at that stage.

It's wonderful when things go well, but sometimes it doesn't. If the mother is disturbed, she is likely to desert her babies. Or sometimes mothers are injured or killed and the orphans are left on their own, usually to die. If they are lucky, and someone hears their cries, they may find their way to us.

Hoglets are born with their eyes and ears closed, and they are totally dependent on their mother's milk. Dad's only involvement is meeting mum, and his job starts and finishes there! Hoglets cannot eat independently and cannot regulate their heat and mum has to toilet them, as they cannot empty themselves. They are hard for a mother hedgehog, but that is nothing compared to the difficulty of rescuers hand-rearing them. They require absolutely sterile conditions, an incubator, sterile feeding, and specialist formula, feeding and toileting every couple of hours.

Our first intake of hoglets happened some weeks ago. We took a call about five babies found in the open near Gargrave. Unfortunately, they had been without their mother for some time and were blue, cold and barely alive, still with the remains of their umbilical cords attached. We did everything we could but, one by one, four of the five passed away. We had marked them all with different colours so that we could monitor who needed what. Miraculously, we are left with 'Pink', our little princess warrior. We fed and toileted her every couple of hours and, in the first week, we managed to get her to a whopping 37g! We weigh her on jewelery/drug scales for accuracy. Since then, she has been thriving, and is now at over 100g! Her eyes are open and she is wandering around and has started lapping for herself. She is our absolute miracle girl.

As we have had a number of female hedgehogs admitted, who we suspect are pregnant, we have set up our own maternity room. Volunteers must work in there in complete silence so as not to disturb our mums-to-be. Spikey Miley, a lovely adult female, arrived recently after suffering a strimmer injury. Whilst in our care, she gave birth to three beautiful hoglets. When hedgehogs give birth in captivity, we have to be really careful not to disturb them for several weeks. The hoglets have thrived with their mum's wonderful care and Spikey Miley has thrived with ours. We are thrilled.