Happenings at the Hedgehog Hilton

From Tony Thain:

Since I sent in a report to the Diary with the latest on Trina and her babies, we have been asked many times how they are all getting on. Following the idyllic photo of Trina's family on our front lawn, there have been many developments. Tonia was very pleased that Trina was feeding her babies, which meant that she, Tonia, did not have to worry. That soon changed as Trina closed the milk bar and showed no further interest in her family. The smallest of the trio soon became very stressed and started to lose weight; this meant that Tonia had to step in and manually feed the little waif, something that we were trying to avoid. Syringe feeding five times a day is a difficult task and took up a massive amount of commitment by Tonia; also, she was handling the animal far more than we wanted.

Finally Teeny, as she was called, started to lap and feed herself and she was put back with mum, to feed on "Big Hedgehog food". This seemed to work and she slowly put on weight. Meantime the other two had been separated from Trina and were growing well. It was now time to put them into the front garden where they could learn to forage for themselves; ideally we wanted to put mum with them, but as soon as Trina was separated from Teeny the latter started to stress out again, so it was back to the drawing board with Trina and Teeny together and Tigger, the little boy, and his sister Tara were left to get on with it in the front garden.

A couple of nights later Tigger had hurt himself, limping badly and obviously in pain.  Guess what? Back to the drawing board and musical hedgehogs. Tiggy was admitted to the recovery ward; Teeny and Tara were put together as Teeny was still a bit nervous; and Trina, getting a bit fed up with being enclosed, was marked up and released a couple of days later. Things quietened down for a few days as the two girls were getting on with each other, Teeny was putting on weight again and Tigger was getting physio once a day and help with feeding.

This couldn't last and so it came to pass on the night prior to a shopping trip to Fort William, Tigger bit Tonia and was dropped about four inches onto the carpeted floor. It takes a lot for a hedgehog to squeal in pain and Tonia was terrified that Tigger had done some serious damage in the fall. Cue Arnica pain killer and a lot of first aid, and I was informed in the morning that we had to visit the Vets in Fort William to get him checked out and possibly an X-ray to check for bone damage. We were not aware that the Vet's practice had moved and we spent a lot of time driving around the town. Finally the Vet saw Tigger who promptly tried to bite her, not a good start, and then went into "blow you, I'm doing my hedgehog thing and rolling up; so try and examine me now!" The outcome was to provide us with some animal anti-inflamitory liquid and to report back later. Tigger is now improving, and we think that there is an element of "the old soldier" act, as he likes attention - one reason that we try and handle as little as possible. It did enter my mind that these hedgehogs are getting better medical attention than the humans living around Kilchoan!!

What of our "wild" hedgehogs? We are getting around twenty into the garden and their likes are varied. We have some who pick out the peanuts from the birds food; others who like oven chips and others who like cake. This photo is of a group feeding about two feet from our back door. A few nights ago we even had a pine marten join the group with no tension between the two species. It is possible that the pine martens have been blamed for attacks on hedgehogs, when it is possible that dogs or mink have really been the culprits.

Finally, last night an injured hedgehog arrived at the hospital with a very deep wound in her back, which was starting to smell badly. She was immediatly looked after and at midnight Tonia was cleaning out the wound, which was not a very nice job, and treating with saline, anti-biotics and Manuka honey. At first I was concerned that a large dog had attacked the little animal, but neither of us could find another penetrating wound - usually there are two, where the canine teeth penetrate. However, we now think that it may have been a fork injury as hedgehogs lay up during the day in piles of branches etc., and sleep. This one will be an ongoing treatment, but at least she knew where to come for the best chances of survival. And some people think that hedgehohs are not smart!