4 dead babies in this garden this morning
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I have had a hedgehog visiting the garden most days now for several weeks. I leave food and water out every night and have seen it feeding many times. This morning I was upset to discover four dead babies all lying close to each other. They were about 2 to 3 inches long. At first I could see no sign of a nest but after looking carefully around I think I have spotted one, I didn’t want to disturb the nest in case there were still live babies in it. I am wondering if the excessive heat has caused their death and also if the Mum has removed the dead babies herself?
So sorry, I am no expert and cannot answer your questions. I do hope someone wiser is able to shed light on your sad discovery.
Heartbreaking; I cannot imagine how upset you are at losing these hoglets.
In my own little microcosm, I can see this excessive heat is causing stress to all garden life.
Hopefully, there might be more little hedgehogs soonHello! I have experience with hog and I hope this answer helps-
If you just saw them all near each other untouched, uninjured, it’s likely they died due to the temperature or an illness. The mother hog will likely have 1-2 living babies in her nest, if not- hedgehogs are resilient and will give birth to a second litter if their first one has failed, if she gives birth later in the year I suggest you take extra care with the autum juveniles as without intervention they may not survive winter because thy were born later. If this is the case, as soon as they emerge please them kitten kibble, people do say don’t feed hedgehogs milk but a a young age they benefit from lactose reduced kitten formula milk. Do consider laying out nest material in late autumn, put out a hedgehog box and you can create large sheltered gaps and places for them to fill with nesting stuff in Preparation for the upcoming winterHi Harrydog
So, sad for you finding the dead little ones. It must have been very distressing. Yes, it may well have been the excessive heat which caused their death – it has been very hot. It sounds sensible not to disturb the nest – it’s possible there may be more in there, but if there were any others they could also have succumbed to the same thing as their siblings, so it isn’t definite. If there were any others you might eventually see them out and about with their Mother, which might solve that mystery.
In the normal course of events late born hoglets can feed for themselves by the time the Mother leaves them but would probably welcome being offered some cat/dog/meaty hog food. It’s also really important to leave water available all day every day, even during winter. If you do find any really tiny ones, it would be best to contact a local carer/rehabilitator and take their advice about them. But hopefully it is early enough in the year for a hog to have another litter and any young produced to still put on enough weight to survive hibernation.
Good luck. Let us know if you do see Mother with young ones.
I notice they seem to emerge around 18:30 in my garden. One day during the heat, I noticed one at 17:30 struggling to walk up the path to the water station. A full recovery, I hope after the refreshment I quickly refilled. I did put a call out on fb to ensure water stays out during hear waves. There are quite a few now around the village.
Sorry this happened, thanks for sharing too, I think we need to be aware that the rapidly changing weather calls for our concern and attention and act to avoid so many deaths.
Roof and cliff nesting birds suffered greatly during the heat.
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