Tiny hedgehog in my garden

[Sarah k]

Hello

I have a very small hedgehog in my garden, he / she has visited over the last couple of nights and has eaten some wet hedgehog food I left out for the larger hogs who live around here.

I am concerned it might be too small to be out and wanted to know how big a hedgehog usually is when they leave the nest and become independent.

He / she looks healthy enough, seems to be walking about ok and appears at about 10pm, so I assume they are all good signs. I think its about 10 – 12cm long, but it’s a bit tricky to tell.

Any advice on hedgehog sizes would be much appreciated.

Thanks

[Jan-Marie]

Hi Sarah k, one thing to say is that freshly weaned hoglets do look tiny – and can weigh typically between 150-200gms on leaving mum, which looks very small. the good news is that if she or he is eating your wet food then its definitely weaned and they do put on weight very quickly once they find a good and regular food source. so my advice would be, if the little dot is turning up regularly and doesn’t appear to be in any state of ill health or distress I would just keep offering good quality food and fresh water and keep a monitoring eye. the fact you have other hogs in the area is a good sign too. It may be an only survivor from a litter – or perhaps you may see more turning up once word is out that there is some food on the go. Fingers crossed for you and little dot.

[stef]

I agree with Jan-Marie.
This sounds like a newly weaned hoglet. If it’s only turning up late at night then it doesn’t sound like it’s in distress, so just keep feeding and monitoring. If you notice it starts to move without purpose/turns up in daytime/is covered in ticks then at that point it will be time to intervene but in the meantime just monitor

[Sarah k]

Thank you both for your reply, thats really helpful.

This is my first hoglet, so I am keen to keep him nice and healthy.

Unfortunately we can only feed him for another couple of weeks as we are moving, but I will ask our neighbours to help if needed, although one has already said he doesn’t want to feed them 🙁

Hopefully the hoglet will be big enough to start searching around for his own food once we have left.

Thanks again

[Gr8mums]

That’s s a pity you are moving , maybe you could leave a note for the new home owner letting them know there’s a little hedgehog who likes to visit the garden . They might like to leave out food and water too .

Hope you enjoy your new home .

[Sarah k]

I spoke to the letting agent who will be renting our house out for us, and told them about the hogs. They said they will tell the new tenants and make them aware they cannot move the hog house.

Fingers crossed they are still looked after.

[Nic]

That’s a good idea and good that the hog house will stay. If you could leave a message asking the new tenants if they could make sure there was at least water always available, that would help, even if they didn’t want to feed. You never know, they might be excited that there are hedgehogs around! Did you have any luck with the other neighbours? Maybe they, too could leave out water, if not willing to feed. It doesn’t seem so important with all this wet weather at the moment, but when we have dry spells can be a life saver for hogs.

If you go to the BHPS site (click on their logo above), there are lots of posters/leaflets about hogs. Maybe you could leave a copy of for instance https://www.britishhedgehogs.org.uk/leaflets/A-guide-to-helping-hedgehogs.pdf
somewhere that the new tenants would find it.

Or if you leave a list of useful numbers, maybe you could add something to that and include, i.e. link to Hedgehog Street, local hog carer, hog food supplier, etc.

Good luck.

[Gr8mums]

That’s good advice Nic. I’m contemplating a house move soon too, but am worried about leaving the hogs behind ! I was planning on leaving some food and a wee note for the new owners of here if we do move.

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