Hedgehog Awareness Week

[HedgehogRescue]

Things you can do to help hedgehogs in your garden and beyond.



Poster issued by the British Hedgehog Preservation Society

[Rob_D]

Good stuff HHR.

The poster doesn't mention not driving over them. I often see them squashed around the housing estate here, and I suspect people could easily avoid them.

[muppetmanjoey]

I had a hedgehog in my garden for the first time ever last night it was huge. it was my dogs that notice it from the house and where cry to get out so i looked out first before i let them out just in case it was someone in my garden thank god i did and noticed the hedgehog. tonight i will be putting out food and hopefully get picture of it, lol i was so exited to see on in the garden as we niver get them so now on i will follow the instruction on the picture, thanks for putting it up.

[Malx]

Happy Days getting a hedgey to visit, MMJ. It's the start of a beautiful relationship for you, hopefully. They're really cracking little critters! Yours may have looked huge, but it was probably scared out of its wits, and 'spiked up' to appear big and scary to predators!

Hope your first visitor wasn't too scared, and has come back. Some water in a bowl, some mild cheddar and a few (unsalted) nuts like peanuts or walnuts, should do it. A bit of dog/cat food or chicken bits if the neighbour's cats won't pinch it.
Put them out as it gets dark to stop the birds nicking them all though!

[HedgehogRescue]

Please don't put out cheese. If a hog is healthy it's OK to give a tiny amount as a treat but if they have any gut problems already then the cheese is only going to make it worse. I've had 2 in with enteritis which was exacerbated by the finder feeding cheese.

Dog and cat food (meat or biscuits) is better and much cheaper although you do run the risk of cats eating it if you don't have a feeding station. Easily built, Google for 'hedgehog feeding station'.

[Malx]

I'm still unconvinced by the cheese thing. We've tried to iron this one out before now with lactose intolerance (see the thread here: Health advice for Hedgehogs, please. and especially mbaldw's response.)
I'd love to know for certain, as my hogs certainly prize cheese above anything except nuts...

I leave fresh roast chicken, minced beef, mealworms and Spikes out every night - they sometimes have a nibble, but not much more.
I've tried practically every vegetarian foodstuff on the planet, but this year's batch of mine only show any real interest in nuts and cheese, to be honest. All the sultanas, cranberries, cucumber, popcorn, apple, sweetcorn, mushrooms, egg, oats/muesli, and even banana [all recommended foods] just get left in the bowl.

Okay, I'm going to take your advice and put some cat biscuits in the bowl tonight, but I think my fussy lot will be laughing derisively down the microphone at me...

[mbaldw]

Hi Malx,

I'd love to know for certain, as my hogs certainly prize cheese above anything except nuts...

Alas you may never know for certain as, I suspect, the answer will vary with individual hedgehogs; some animals (humans included) have a stronger 'constitution' than others. Some cats, for example, can drink regular milk their entire lives without incident, while the others can only drink 'cat (i.e. lactose-reduced) milk' and others cannot handle either without getting diarrhoea - I have known cats from all three categories and I suspect much the same is true of hedgehogs. It is true that cheese (and yoghurt) is very low in lactose as a result of the manufacturing process, but if a hedgehog happens to be extremely sensitive to lactose it may still cause a problem. I have no personal experience of raising sick hedgehogs, so I would always bow to the Hedgehoggys, HedgehogRescuers, ValleyForges etc. of this world on these sort of decisions and assume that cheese is probably best avoided or, at most, used in moderation.

my hogs certainly prize cheese above anything except nuts...

I prize beer and pizza above water and salad and, while I like to try to never read the nutritional information on the box (assuming pizzas have nutritional value!), I know deep down that it's not particularly good for me. Perhaps hedgehogs don't share our foresight! Still, in my defense, I have a brain that craves high fat foods (Susan Francis and her colleagues at Nottingham University, showed this very nicely with a few creamy drinks and an MRI scanner!). I'd be interested to know whether a similar mechanism exists in hedgehogs or other animals that need to lay down fat very quickly?

Anyway, I digress...

Cheers,
Marc.

[Malx]

Cheers, Marc, a most interesting reply, but happily not didactic so maybe I will add what you say and sway towards weaning my diners off the cheese board, and showing them the fruit bowl instead!

P.S. Regarding your physique, you do realise it's perfectly normal/acceptable - even advisable - to put on weight over winter?

Works for me, anyway!

[HedgehogRescue]

Hogs are like us and will happily eat anything that's bad for them as it tastes nice. They have a sweet tooth. One of the things we do with reluctant eaters is mix in a little honey. Trouble is, you then have the devil's own job getting them off it.

The babies get hooked on mealworms which is unfortunate as they are great for getting them to put on weight. If you've ever seen a cageful of hoglets having a tantrum due to lack of mealworms you'll know the mess they make.

Small amounts of cheese as a treat is OK but if it's regularly given then it can be a problem. Many of the hogs coming in have gut problems caused by all sorts of things. If they've been eating cheese as well or, heaven forbid, drinking milk, then it just makes things worse and a hog with enteritis is not a pretty sight. There's nothing more guaranteed to send a carer to the bottle than a cage full of blood first thing in the morning.

Yes some hogs can handle cheese but many can't and it's like most things, if one person gives a hog cheese and 400 read about it, 399 will assume that it's fine to feed nothing but cheese to all hogs, so we try to instill caution.

There is now a brand of cheese you can give, LactoFree, which is sold in supermarkets for lactose intolerant people but again, I'm careful in recommending it as people then assume it's OK to give all cheese.

Nuts are another problem. You need to make sure they're crushed. We get animals in with whole nuts jammed on their back teeth so they can't eat. Not doing terribly well here are we Malx. LOL.

Cat biscuits. I've found the ones that go down really well are Arden Grange Chicken and Rice which you can get from Waitrose at £7.99 for 2.5kg which works out cheaper than most others. It's hypoallergenic and all my hogs seem to love them.

Don't bother with all the banana, cucmber etc. Hogs don't eat plants so no real reason why they'd eat veggies apart from the occasional bit of apple. If your hogs are turning their noses up then they either have another food supply nearby or their natural food is in abundance where you are. They nearly always prefer their own and use what we give them as a top up unless there is some reason why they can't forage for themselves.

Crikey, that went on a bit.

[dampflippers]

The one I rescued, when it was eating went for the soaked mealworms in preference to everything else. I think it already liked them due to me feeding the birds.