Hello & just had to share a little ray of hope
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I’ve accidentally (but not without a lot of thought and investigation) become a hedgehog rescuer/carer/rehabilitator this year. It all kicked off after I found a hoglet thinking it was a rat at the food I put out for my visiting adult hedgehog. I got in touch with a lovely lady who is a rescue – who I’d only met through having some wood going free that she wanted for making a pen!
She took the little one for me and started caring for it, lo and behold another one arrived two nights later, and the pattern repeated till I’d found five. Long story short, the later two didn’t survive (one and maybe both had fluke amongst other things), but the first three are doing well, which is great. I was more than happy to have them back to overwinter them and as I’d been made redundant it fit in timing wise really with life, I’d never be able to do it if I was working.
I read everything I could to prepare for overwintering, asked neighbours for papers for bedding, and then realised now I’d be presented with ailing hedgehogs on the doorstep and not know what to do. Booked myself onto the Vale course for the earliest date – middle of january – and threw myself into reading even more.
Other half’s been extremely supportive and encouraged me to do the Vale course, but also to take in needy hogs here as so many rescues are so full, so that’s what’s happened – having kicked off with a vet for support on that side of things, I got my first contact earlier this week and collected a little juvenile boy who had been scavenging under a bird table for seeds and mealworms. I’d got a microscope so done poo samples using my visiting adult as a test subject (she has lungworm and coccidiosis!) so looked at this one’s poo straight away as it had all the same hyperactivity as the two boys who didn’t make it. Found almost the entire bingo card, poor thing – roundworm, lungworm, and the fluke was confirmed yesterday with a single egg found after fluke treatment started based on his behaviour and droppings.
I’ve been quite concerned because he was dehydrated and has had pretty awful poo (rehydrated orally that night and next morning vet cleared me for subcutaneous rehydration) but so thrilled that he’s been slowly improving with hand-feeding ebsilac milk and subcut rehydration regularly, the hyperactivity stopped, and he’s just now popped out to investigate food in a dish for the first time in over 24 hours, and has happily munched away on some mashed up liquified brambles meaty food, and tried some spikes semi-moist pellets as well. He’s gone back into his little snuggle sack and was smacking his lips in there very noisily, came out for a bit more and is now having a good old dig in there LOL.
He’d started huffing at me today too which I took as a good sign that he was feeling a bit feisty, he was so quiet and obviously miserable yesterday.
Just had to share my hope that he may actually be going in the right direction now, just hope it continues! Not exactly sure what I’ve got myself in for, as I don’t exactly have oodles of room here for a hundred hedgehogs, but it’s mostly just me here and my two (well behaved and hedgehog-savvy) cats with the other half at the weekends. No children and a quiet house, so I’m sure it’ll be fine if they take over the livingroom a bit… and there’s always the bottom of the garden, there’s room for another shed there… just have to get power to it for lighting and heating… no biggie, right?
Oh goodness, I’ve now got the surviving three at my friend’s rescue and gained another myself here last night — I thought my adult was out of hibernation for a snack and went out to check it was her (she’s due the second part of lungworm treatment but hibernated somewhere before that happened).
Nope, found a little girl juvenile, 395g, and nicely rounded shape when balled (and very good at balling up too!) She’s settled in (and trashed her home overnight, even stacking the water dish on top of the food dish!) and is eating well and poops look good but I’ll be putting some under the microscope today to see if she’s going to need worming or fluke medications. She’s not hyperactive so I’m hoping she doesn’t have fluke, but she absolutely does have ringworm or mange mites so she’ll be getting a bath later to wash all the dirt off her and loosen some of that, then treatment starting to sort that out.
A month ago I thought I’d just be overwintering however many survived of my garden five hoglets, and now my house is being taken over by prickly things in boxes…
Thank you Annker!
I’m now up to three of the ones I found who are still with my friend at another rescue and I now have four under my roof that are ones I’ve taken in from other people. A fifth came in very small indeed and didn’t survive the first week, sadly, as they were so very very ill, but the other four are doing well, putting on weight, and are being treated for all the parasites they have.
Need to juggle things around in my house so I can manage the additional two cages should any more arrive now, LOL!
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