September 6th, 2011

We are now down to 6 hedgehogs in care. Elrond as you can see above has now gone to Hedgehog Haven to stay with Aunty Sue. She is watching over him and checking his hearing. Hopefully he will also get used to being a wild hedgehog. I think because when he arrived and was so ill he became to trust me a bit too much. I became mum and he trusted me and wouldn't curl up when I was around. He had fly strike which had had hatched out into maggots and they were in his eye and his ear on his right side. I flushed them out, but don't know what sort of damage they had already done to his hearing. His eyesight seemed fine. But I did worry about his hearing as he never flinched much like other hogs do. So he is now living with Aunty Sue for a bit before he is ready for releasing once she is satisfied he can hear okay. We will keep you posted.

We had a really lovely day Last week where the temp was lovely and no rain so I decided to give the hoglets a run outside for a bit of exercise and fresh air. They all had a lovely time and hunted for meal worms. Please remember though that these are hogs in care and if you see a hedgehog out during the daytime then they are in trouble and to please catch them, put into a box and get them some help by contacting the BHPS. They will be able to get you in touch with a carer in your area.
These photos are of Bert. He is one of the three brothers found by the Hog busters. :)

I think George won't recognize them now as they have all grown up quite a bit now as you can see from the photos.

Again the above is a photo of Bert.You can see how big he has gotten compared to the cat dish.

This is Billy out enjoying the fresh air and exercise. He is the largest of the three boys with Bert next biggest and Henry the smallest. Both Billy and Bert are over 500 grams now.

And this is Henry. Having some exercise and searching for mealworms.

Here is little Blossom enjoying some exercise. She is growing up quick she has even passed Francis now in weight and is over 350 grams now.

Again you can see how big Blossom has gotten.

Soft Release
Once the hogs get over 550 grams I put them into soft release so they can soon be released back to the wild. Gloin was released out into the garden about a week ago and with Elrond now at Aunty Sue's, the soft release pens became free. So I tidied up the pens and boxes and got them ready for the next tenants. Since Ratty and Billy were the biggest at the time, they were moved to the pens last Saturday. Below are some photos of their move. And since that gave us two large cages free, then Henry and Blossom were moved from their smaller cages to bigger cages and they are enjoying the extra space.