Old Dairy Happenings

As many people who read the Diary know, here at the Old Dairy we look after injured and ill hedgehogs, get them better, and release them back to the wild. Autumn and Winter are usually our busy times, as we over-winter underweight juveniles ready for the Spring and then release. One of our guests this winter was a naturally small female hedgehog that we called "Trina" - they all get names and a medical record - who was released a couple of months ago in one of our rare spells of milder weather.

A few weeks ago, Katie MacFarlane found an injured hedgehog and brought it to us. It turned out to be Trina who had been in a fight with, possibly, a pine marten. A lot of her quills were broken and she had teeth puncture marks in her side. Straight away our "Hedgehog Paramedic" (Tonia) swung into action and cleaned the animal up, removed any ticks and bathed the wound with salt water. As there were so many damaged and missing quills, she rang Tiggywinkles for advice on stimulating regrowth of the missing quills. It appears that Aloe Vera cream is a good stimulant, so a paint brush was used to get the cream deep into the remaining quills.

Once a day this treatment continued, followed by a gentle cuddle while her nest was cleaned and remade. Trina became more amenable as she recognised that the treatment was making her feel better and she became more co-operative. As the wound healed and the quills started to regrow, the treatment was reduced as we did not want her to become too dependent on us as she was destined to be re-released as soon as possible.

Last Sunday, Trina was collected as usual after a couple of days without treatment and the usual massage of Aloe Vera cream was carried out. By now the cuddle had stopped and Trina was left in the kitchen while Tonia checked the bedding. Tonia was completely shocked when what she thought was a large dropping suddenly came to life and spat and growled at her: Trina had produced babies! The initial count was two, after Tonia had very quickly replaced the hoglet. Trina was rapidly collected and put back with her new family. Eventually, when the shock had worn off, Tonia counted FIVE hoglets all cuddled up to mum.

We have to be very careful not to disturb the nest as the mother may kill the infants if there is too much disturbance. This is why we only have very hard-to-interpret photos. The picture of the nest does show the babies close to mum, but you have to look very closely as their camouflage is very good. At this stage they are blind and mainly pink, having been described as like large hairy caterpillars with a mohican! Of course the photo of the hedgehog in Tonia's arms is the very smug and proud mum, who doesn't seem to be too phased about having a break from the family.

The situation was caused, we think, when two injured male hedgehogs were brought in for treatment about six weeks ago and at least one managed to climb over the 18" barrier between the pens and was found in Trina's pen.

So now, instead of three hedgehogs in residence, we have eight!