Hedgehog in the house.

We used to see them in our garden occasionally but as someone pointed out with fences and gates there's no way for them to get in now. I remember once clearing out a lot of leaves from the huge trees we used to have and finding the remains of one all tangled up in some pea netting - I was heartbroken thinking of the poor thing struggling to get out and have never put netting up since.

during the spring, summer and autumn i get quite a lot of hoggies in my garden, and i love watching them. but i have also found injured or sick ones. one had lost a back leg, another one, someone had obviously tried feeding it with scrambled egg, its spines around its head were caked with it and it had some stuck over 1 eye, another had a broken leg and was walking around in circles, and another two (including the one i wrote about) just were not well. they were all out during the day. all of them went to the p.d.s.a.or to a local vet. except the one with the broken leg . i phoned the r.s.p.c.a for that one, and was very upset because it took almost 11 hours for someone to come about it, he started to pick it up from the box and managed to drop it onto the concrete, he took it away with him and about an hour later phoned to tell me that it was so ill it had been put to sleep.
all of the others were nursed back to health after seeing a vet and then taken to a hoggie rescue place. the one with a missing back leg was evidently sent to someone who has a very large enclosed garden. i was told that foxes often stand behind a curled up hoggie waiting for it to uncurl and then they grab a back leg and fling the hoggie up into the air. we have lots of foxes around here.
my next door neighbour once shouted for me to say she thought there was an injured animal hiding in the bushes at the bottom of my garden ( 4 railway tracks just beyond) so i got my torch, and a long piece of wood to move the bushes with and off we went. we were a bit scared as we didn't know what we were going to find, but there was something making a noise in there. when i lifted the branches up we both burst out laughing. it was a pair of hoggies doing what nature intended! i said sorry for being so nosy, and we beat a quick retreat, and left them to it.

Hedgehogs from second litters born later in the summer will struggle and be unable to get through hibernation; they will need nourishment through the winter.

Underweight hedgehogs struggle to get through the winter. As a previous post says, if one is seen during the day it is in real trouble, and needs warmth from a well wrapped hot water bottle inside a cardboard box. Plus water, dog food, or mealworms. Sanctuaries all over the place , ask your vet. We have one in a small village and have a growing hog population, traffic not withstanding. Rescued 3 last year in Autumn which were fattened up, anointed with coded symbols in the form of discreetly applied nail varnish and released. Doing fine.
They can and do climb which can be quite a surprise if you attempt to fence them in. And they can run very fast - they sort of hitch their underskirt of spines up ! When they get to that stage your job is done.

Perhaps they were having a party!

Once when we lived in Hampshire but were on holiday in Newcastle, our son rang us up and said there were noises coming from outside the dining room window. He wouldn't go and look to see what it was, so we told him to keep the windows and doors shut until we got back the next day.
It turned out to be a family of hedgehogs in the bushes.
He insisted that they had been very noisy.

Thanx for that Wilma. Will search out a rescue group here in France.

My neighbour asked us why we didn't use gravel boards when we replaced the fence between our gardens. We explained we used bricks to make sure hedgehogs could pass through - and they do. Mind you we see more hedgehogs in the front garden and on the drive than at the back.

They need a huge territory to survive, and we are all sealing off our gardens so they can't roam far enough. It's because we do the right thing by putting gravel boards at the bottom of fences to stop rot - so where there used to be gaps, there are none. If we all leave hedgehog-sized gaps at ground level (they can't climb much higher) there will be hope.

They are also killed by slug pellets. Slugs and snails are their main food.

I'd love a garden full of hedgehogs, but don't think I'll get one in this lifetime.
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annifrance I don't think you're advised to try and relocate a hedgehog in case it has young in a nest that wouldn't survive. Also, it knows where it can find food and water, so it could be a struggle to have to start again somewhere else. Badgers are the biggest hedgehog predators, but large birds like owls will eat hedgehog. Not sure if a bird would take a live one though. There are wildlife rescue organisations in France, maybe you could see if one near you lets you adopt or relocate one from there?

starlily well done to you.

pinkwallpaper I had heard they can be noisy! Talk about drawing attention!

We had a pair mating on our lawn last year. They make quite a noise!

Wilma - thanks. So sad that there are so few in the Royal Parks now, no wonder they are surveying the situation! There could be some in Buckingham Palace gardens Perhaps, and of course in parks outside Central London.

Lucky you Tricia. I have tried to encourage hedgehogs into our potager (veggie garden) with no success. I built a little hide and put in water and tinned cat food. I would love some. it would help with the bugs and we do try to be as chemical free as possible, in fact use hardly any. We are surrounded by deer, boar and buzzards - could these have an effect? I also understand that the traditional milk and bread is harmful to them.

Inspired me so about to put an email around to see if anyone has any in the area that we could transport here and hopefully grow the population. Any advice on relocating them?

just a few weeks ago i found a wee hedgehog in the garden on a really cold day. i know that when they are out in daylight it means there is something wrong with them, and also that it should still be hibernating. it was trying to eat some of the birdseed which had fallen from the seed holders. i gave it some chopped up dog food and water, and watched until it had a feed and drink. it just lay there and didn't try to move away. so i took it inside and popped it into a box lined with paper and an old towel. it just went to sleep straight away. next day i took it to the p.d.s.a. it was going to be seen by a vet. and then go to a hedgehog sanctuary to be looked after till it was large enough to be released.
just a word of warning, although they sometimes have fleas, as has already been said, these do not live on other animals or humans, but you should not use any kind of flea spray on the hedgehog!

I was telling my friend about it and she pointed out that hedgehogs are often run over when trying to cross the road. So no wonder the numbers in London are falling, with all the traffic.

Elrel sorry, but I did get it wrong. I just found a clip with Michaela saying there's about 50 in RP and it's the only park in London with any hedgehogs at all. Very sad.

It took them hours to find just one hog. Maybe I've got the number wrong. Or maybe they discovered more in the last year.

Wilma - so few in RP! My daughter definitely saw some there.

They must be able to get out of your garden, as they can wander a couple of miles at night. The trick is to entice them to come back to your garden.

If your garden is completely enclosed, I think some sanctuaries will let you adopt a disabled hedgehog. Hogs can climb though, so you can't have any climbing plants that can be used to escape. My local sanctuary doesn't let you adopt disabled hogs, but you can see them at open days. Even 3 legged hogs can shift quickly when they want!

The idea is that you encourage them to go out of your garden by building holes for them to pass through your fence. Big enough for hedgehogs but not big enough for cats and dogs.

They need long runs. If you encourage your neighbours to do the same, they will come back to your garden - if they can get in.

Apparently hedgehogs are declining in the wild at the same rate as tigers. On Springwatch last year, Michaela Strachan went hunting during the night for hedgehogs in Regents Park, as part of a project to track down the last remaining hedgehogs in central London. The hedgehogs are fitted with trackers to try and find out more about why numbers are in dropping so quickly and help other parks around the country preserve the population. IIRCC, it took hours to find a hedgehog and they think there's only about 5 hedgehogs in the whole of Regents park.

You can get a hedgehog for your garden from my local sanctuary. They eat the bugglies that eat your plants, but they will wander off if they can get out of your garden. They're very good at wiggling under fences!

Years ago when DC were small we had quite a number of hedgehogs in our quite large garden. They were wonderful at eating pests and ate snails very noisily, it sounded just like boys eating crisps in the noisiest way possible. DC thought they were very funny.
On odd occasions we would find a hedgehog in our kitchen eating the cats' meat. They were very messy!

Greymary I believe their numbers are declining due to loss of habitat (new roads, housing, etc.) not to mention the huge number of them killed on the roads .

Please don't give your Mrs Tiggy-Winkle any milk, because they don't tolerate lactose and it will likely give them diarrhoea. I only mention it because it is often something people think they like (and actually, I think they do like it - it's just that it doesn't like them ). Plain water is best.

My daughter signed up a month or two ago to spend a night in undergrowth in Regent's Park on a hedgehog survey. One of her reasons was that she'd never seen a live hedgehog.
Novices were instructed by old hands and she certainly spent an interesting night and saw hedgehogs!