A few weeks ago, James was putting the binbags out in the evening when he saw a hedgehog on the path. He knows that they are my favourite animal, and thought that something didn’t seem quite right with the way it was moving, so he called me out to take a look.
After checking it out, and agreeing that something wasn’t right, we brought the hedgehog inside. We popped it into a large box with room to move around and gave it some water. Watching it move around some more, it seemed like one of the back legs was dragging. We hopped onto the internet for advise and to find the details of some local hedgehog rescues that might be able to help.
The first one we tried contacting didn’t pick up their “24 hour” phone, so I sent a quick text message to a second one, before we settled the hedgehog down out of the way in the downstairs loo. Hedgehogs can get out of shallow boxes so we used one of those huge plastic tubs instead, lining it with some vetbed, popping in some wet dog food, and adding in a bottle filled with hot tap water (wrapped in a tea towel) to keep it warm, with a towel for him to snuggle under.
In the morning we heard back from the lovely Sally at Happyhogs Hedgehog Rescue and arranged to take our poorly hedgehog in later that day. We settled him in the bath upstairs for the day, with fresh hot water in the bottle, and some more food and water. We didn’t want to leave him in the downstairs toilet in the daytime as Georgie is used to using it for most of the day, and also we wanted to make sure he had somewhere quiet to spend the day away from our noisy kids!
We did let the girls take a peek and Georgie was in charge of naming him. After her first suggestion of “Hedgehog” was vetoed (she is still very literal with her naming of things!) she settled on “Hodge” instead.
After James came home from work we all went to drop him off and have some dinner. Sally has a great set up at the end of her back garden, with a little hedgehog rescue centre set up in a shed. All of the hedgehogs were super cute and she is obviously doing a great job nursing them back to health so they can be released into the wild.
I’m happy to report that Sally took him along to a vet and he had indeed broken his back leg, but it has been amputated now and Sally has let me know that he is recovering.
If you find a hedgehog in distress, out in the daytime, or seriously underweight, please bring it indoors, get it warm and fed, and find a local rescue centre to help out.
Use a towel or gardening gloves to pick up the hedgehog safely, and put it in a tall sided box to make sure it doesn’t escape. They can eat wet dog or cat food, and if possible give it access to a shallow dish of water too. If it is out in the daytime at this time of year this is very wrong so please get it help asap. We were a little worried with Hodge that he was ok and we were wasting Sally’s time, but obviously our instinct that he was in trouble was right – and it is better to be safe than sorry.
We found these pages helpful; when to rescue & when to leave alone, and how to rescue.
You can keep up with the goings on at Happyhogs Hedgehog Rescue at their Facebook page. They are in desperate need of supplies so if you would like to help out please consider donating some food or supplies – you can find details on their amazon wishlist
.
Oh he is so cute! Well done for helping Hodge! x
He was pretty adorable. Georgie went to preschool telling everyone we had a hedgehog in the bath and was quite upset when he was gone!
Nice one for spotting he needed help. We rescued a hedgehog that had been used as a football a few years ago and sadly after 8 days he didn’t make it – your story has a happier ending and a less unpleasant start!
Thanks for the resources at the end, they’re going to be helpful.
Do you have a place where I can connect with you on twitter?