New hedgehog sighting

[NinaB]

Hi, we noticed our little visitor early last night and he or she has been back tonight also. I’ve put out a little cat food and water. It’s a medium/smallish in size.

We first spotted it on our shared drive as it triggered our security light, it has access down the side of our neighbours garage into their overgrown shrubs and trees, we have a wooden fence separating our gardens.

We don’t want to get over excited and encourage it into our garden as we have a Jack Russell dog and an over excitable attack driven Doberman cross dog who would probably be a danger to it. We can monitor and feed it from a safe distance. I will buy some proper hedgehog food tomorrow, I want to try to discourage it from our driveway and the busy main road. Should we block off the access to our driveway?

Thanks
NinaB

[Nic]

Hi Nina

If you think your hog visitor is small (450g is the minimum required to survive hibernation), please ring BHPS 01584 890801 for advice about underweight hogs. I have been trying to give more details but there is a problem with the Forum at the moment and it’s refusing to accept my longer posts.

[Nic]

Hi NinaB

The main concern at this time of year is whether it is big enough to hibernate. The minimum they need to be is 450g. If it is fairly small, is there any chance you can weigh the little hog. If it weighs less than 450g put it in a box/pet carrier with newspaper on the floor and some torn up paper for bedding and provide some food and water. You will need to ring the BHPS 01584 890801 to find your nearest hedgehog carer who can over-winter the hog if necessary. You might like to contact a carer before you catch and weigh to make sure there is room for the hog somewhere.

Unfortunately you can’t really encourage the hog not to go on the main road. The best way to ensure that they don’t need to go onto roads is to link as many gardens as possible, so that they don’t need to cross the roads. That would mean involving your neighbours and encouraging them to make hog holes. https://www.hedgehogstreet.org/help-hedgehogs/link-your-garden/ You may not want to make a hole into your own garden if you think the dogs are a danger to hogs, but you could encourage others to do so.

There is some information about pets and hedgehogs https://www.hedgehogstreet.org/pets-and-hedgehogs/ The only thing I would add to that is that dogs can fatally injure adult hogs as well as hoglets. A dog got into my garden once and attacked a hog and injuring its spinal cord. It had to be euthanased. Possibly the dog bit it before it got it’s spines up.

[Nic]

I sent this yesterday, but I see it still is not showing, but apologies if you end up getting this twice.

Hi NinaB

The main concern at this time of year is whether it is big enough to hibernate. The minimum they need to be is 450g. If it is fairly small, is there any chance you can weigh the little hog. If it weighs less than 450g put it in a box/pet carrier with newspaper on the floor and some torn up paper for bedding and provide some food and water. You will need to ring the BHPS 01584 890801 to find your nearest hedgehog carer who can over-winter the hog if necessary. You might like to contact a carer before you catch and weigh to make sure there is room for the hog somewhere.

Unfortunately you can’t really encourage the hog not to go on the main road. The best way to ensure that they don’t need to go onto roads is to link as many gardens as possible, so that they don’t need to cross the roads. That would mean involving your neighbours and encouraging them to make hog holes. https://www.hedgehogstreet.org/help-hedgehogs/link-your-garden/ You may not want to make a hole into your own garden if you think the dogs are a danger to hogs, but you could encourage others to do so.

There is some information about pets and hedgehogs https://www.hedgehogstreet.org/pets-and-hedgehogs/ The only thing I would add to that is that dogs can fatally injure adult hogs as well as hoglets. A dog got into my garden once and attacked a hog and injured its spinal cord. The hog had to be euthanased. Possibly the dog bit it before it got it’s spines up.

[Nic]

Hi Nina

Apologies for the delay in replying. I did reply a couple of days ago, but there is a bit of a problem with the Forum at the moment and posts are disappearing. But I’ll try to copy my reply in again.

Hi NinaB

The main concern at this time of year is whether it is big enough to hibernate. The minimum they need to be is 450g. If it is fairly small, is there any chance you can weigh the little hog. If it weighs less than 450g put it in a box/pet carrier with newspaper on the floor and some torn up paper for bedding and provide some food and water. You will need to ring the BHPS 01584 890801 to find your nearest hedgehog carer who can over-winter the hog if necessary. You might like to contact a carer before you catch and weigh to make sure there is room for the hog somewhere.

Unfortunately you can’t really encourage the hog not to go on the main road. The best way to ensure that they don’t need to go onto roads is to link as many gardens as possible, so that they don’t need to cross the roads. That would mean involving your neighbours and encouraging them to make hog holes. https://www.hedgehogstreet.org/help-hedgehogs/link-your-garden/ You may not want to make a hole into your own garden if you think the dogs are a danger to hogs, but you could encourage others to do so.

There is some information about pets and hedgehogs https://www.hedgehogstreet.org/pets-and-hedgehogs/ The only thing I would add to that is that dogs can fatally injure adult hogs as well as hoglets. A dog got into my garden once and attacked a hog and injuring its spinal cord. It had to be euthanased. Possibly the dog bit it before it got it’s spines up.

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