Caring for Hoglets

BHPS know your hedgehog Series

Rearing hoglets should non be undertaken lightly. It is essential to provide adequate constant warmth and regular feeding and toileting. Hoglets can deteriorate very apace especially if they are not kept at an even temperature. Their best chance of survival is with someone experienced with their intendance. If you decide to continue with their care do find a local contact who will be able to aid you lot through whatever problems. Call the BHPS (01584 890801) for details of such contacts.

In that location is and so much involved in their care that it cannot all exist included in a brusque leaflet. Indeed a whole chapter is devoted to rearing hoglets in the BHPS'due south book Hedgehog Rehabilitation by Kay Bullen (available from the address below). If urgent BHPS can electronic mail a copy of the affiliate to you on request.

Whatsoever wild animal or pet can carry diseases or have pare problems that tin be passed on to humans and indeed other animals. Adept hygiene and the use of gloves can help reduce this chance.

When you lot may discover them

Hoglets may be plant in May, June or July, when the first litters are mostly born, and in August-September, when the second litters are born. The boilerplate size of a litter is four to five.

Why you may find them

If the mother is disturbed presently after the nascence, she may desert her hoglets. So if you have a nest in your garden do not keep looking in it as this may cause the mother to desert the babies. Many hoglets are made orphans when their mothers are killed past motor vehicles or die because of garden or farmland hazards.

Where you may find them

The hoglets volition probably be in or well-nigh their nest, which frequently volition exist under a shed, in a hedgerow, pile of garden debris or a compost heap. You may hear their distressed, shrill, bird-like piping. If you find i or two, the expanse should be searched, as at that place may exist others, either still in the nest or nearby.

What to do when you detect them

Abandoned hoglets are very vulnerable creatures and are often found in a poor state. For survival, human help is needed speedily, and by and large three things are needed urgently – WARMTH, TOILETING and FLUIDS. Do not give hoglets fluids by mouth if the hoglets are cold. Warm fluids before giving.

Stress reduction

Wildlife suffer stress in an unnatural environment and hedgehogs are no exception. The hoglets volition need to be in a quiet, calm atmosphere and handled only when necessary.

How to provide warmth for them

one week old hogletThe hoglets must be kept in a warm room. They should be placed in a small cardboard box or similar container, lined with a towel. For bedding use more than quondam (merely non threadbare) towels. Place a hot water bottle, filled with hot – not boiling water – wrapped in a towel or warm cloth, in the bottom of the box (a reptile heat mat or heated propagator may exist used instead) Put the hoglets on this and comprehend with further bedding. The hot water bottle will need to be changed every few hours, even at night, to keep the hoglets warm. Litter mates can be kept together.

Hygiene

It is important that the hoglets, their bedding and feeding equipment are kept scrupulously clean. The bedding should be inverse regularly and the feeding equipment sterilised. After dealing with each litter, easily should be washed and weighing equipment cleaned.

Weight

Weigh the hoglets daily and nautical chart their growth. Mark them by painting a few prickles with nail varnish – each hoglets' mark will be in a different identify. Don't apply red colours in case it is mistaken for blood and the hedgehog is unnecessarily 'rescued'.

How to feed them

This will depend largely on the historic period and weight of the hedgehogs, and the following schedule is a suggested guide: –

Up to 2 weeks old (Weight almost 1-3ozs, thirty-85gms) – Very regular

"mitt" feeding of well-nigh 1-3mls approx. every 2-4 hours (or on demand!). Kitten and puppy powdered milk substitutes are often used as is goats' milk, merely a lactose complimentary or depression in lactose milk like that sold in pet shops or supermarkets for kittens and cats can be used in the short term. Multi-vitamin drops (Abidec) should be given daily (four-5 drops) in ane of the feeds especially if frozen milk substitute is used. Warm the milk substitute before feeding.– Their poo will exist a peppermint green colour and exist in oval globules when they are beingness fed on just their milk substitute mixture. This is normal. The mixture can be given using a small syringe, dropper or pipette, with a pocket-size piece of soft tubing attached to the terminate. The hoglets volition accept sustenance best if lying on their backs in your hand with head facing upwards and tail to the floor. Past weighing daily yous can check they are gaining weight. If they are not gaining, increase the number of feeds or the amount given at each feed.

Their eyes open up at ii weeks enabling the hoglets to come across their nutrient. If problems with the eyes occur, they should be bathed with warm h2o using a dissever piece of cotton wool wool for each centre. A jam jar lid of milk substitute tin be left in the box from now on, but keep feeding using the syringe etc. A little Heinz Babe food (meat variety) can also be added to thicken the milk substitute. By two weeks they should exist fed every four hours. If their weight gain levels off add well-mashed meat to the milk substitute or add together it anyhow at above two and a half weeks of age.

3-iv weeks erstwhile (Weight about 4 to 6ozs, 110-170gms) – Frequency of feeds volition exist four hourly and food should be varied by adding small amounts of protein e.k. tinned pet food mulched in quantities of milk substitute. Lower front end teeth announced at three weeks. Effectually iii and a half weeks you lot tin stop toileting them and they volition probably be feeding themselves. From 4 weeks on, if over 200gms, the heat could exist removed simply check that the hoglets tin stay warm without the extra rut. A small dish of water for drinking can also be provided at this point.

five-6 weeks erstwhile (Weight about 7 to 9oz, 200-260gms) – By now the hoglet should exist feeding well. Provide a dish of roughly mashed up meat and milk substitute and a dish of water – as they become more nocturnal they volition finish feeding during the 24-hour interval so will only crave food at night. At 6-7 weeks the milk substitute tin can be stopped.

In captivity hoglets put on weight much more quickly than in the wild. Weight guides given are for wild hedgehogs, hand reared hedgehogs can counterbalance 500 or 600gms at 8 weeks.

How to toilet them

Mothers usually lick the hoglet's tummy to stimulate it to pass urine. In intendance we use a cotton bud dipped in olive oil or infant oil. This is vibrated as calorie-free as a feather over the anus and vulva or penis in an upwardly and downward, caput to tail direction. The hoglets should relax, stretch out their back legs and urinate (they volition also defecate). This should be done on inflow and later every feed until the hoglet is nearly 31 / ii weeks old.

What to practice after feeding them

It is of import that all parts of the hoglets should exist kept as clean as possible. After each meal wipe them over with cotton wool wool, moistened with warm h2o and olive oil, or a drop of baby oil or lotion. This not only cleans off any spilt food but too keeps their peel moist. As hoglets are very prone to infections, the cleaning process also acts every bit a regular health check.

How to deal with unproblematic ailments

Some wild hedgehogs behave fleas but these can ordinarily be cleared by dusting with any flea or mite powder used for pet birds (be very careful when using information technology on minor babies and always avert the eyes, ears, nose and mouth). Maggots may be found and will all need to be removed, check in the ears, eyes and oral cavity besides as externally. These tin be treated with an anti-maggot training if you lot take ane available. Wing eggs can usually be picked off with tweezers and any harm and so checked. Obvious wounds tin be bathed in warm salt water. Still, if you are in any incertitude about the physical condition of the hoglets, do contact a hedgehog carer or a veterinary surgeon.

How to release them

If the hoglets were function of a May/July litter they should be released into the wild as shortly as information technology is articulate they tin fend for themselves – they should counterbalance nearly 450gms and be at to the lowest degree 8 weeks onetime. If you have hedgehogs that regularly visit your garden and so the hoglet could be released there; if non endeavour and observe a garden where other hedgehogs are present (they are non territorial). Do not release during bad weather or drought atmospheric condition and release in the late evening when it is dark. Equally a "redundancy", put out some food in case they return.

If the hoglets were part of a tardily litter they should non be released unless they weigh at least 600gms you may similar to ring BHPS to discuss release weights. Beneath 450gms they may struggle to survive hibernation in the wild and therefore should be housed indoors and given plenty of food and water until ready for release. Practice non allow them to become obese (eg maximum of 1kg).

How to sex them

how to sex hedgehogs

Male and female hoglets both take tails, with the anus at the base of operations of their bodies. They too both have an navel (navel) and nipples. There the similarity ends. The male's penis is underneath the umbilicus whereas the female's vulva is just above the anus. In very immature hoglets it tin can exist hard to tell the deviation as the male person's penis is nearer to the anus at birth. It moves forward equally the hoglet grows.

Self Anointing

When you beginning introducing new flavours to the hoglet'southward diet it may behave out the foreign behaviour known as cocky-anointing. The hoglet will flick frothy saliva over its spines, contorting itself into awkward positions and so that it tin attain every part of its spiny coat. The procedure tin last from just a few minutes to an hour or so and will end suddenly. Information technology is not known why hedgehogs do this although many theories have been put forward. It seems to be triggered by foreign smells and tastes.

FACTS Yous MIGHT LIKE TO KNOW ABOUT HEDGEHOGS:

The length of a hedgehog pregnancy is usually 32 days but tin be somewhat variable. It is believed that if for instance, a common cold spell of conditions in spring brings near a shortage of natural food, a pregnant hedgehog volition resume hibernation and the evolution of her embryos volition slow downward. When she is active over again the embryos keep to abound and the pregnancy is lengthened past the same amount of time as the hibernation period.

When hoglets are built-in they are grey on top with pink faces and bellies and exercise not take visible spines. These are under the skin covered by a layer of fluid, like a large water blister. Presently after birth the fluid is absorbed and the spines erupt through the skin.

The new spines are white but brown ones announced amidst them from 36 hours onetime and by the fourth dimension the hoglet is fifteen days sometime the white ones are hardly visible.

Hedgehogs shed their spines just as humans shed their pilus.

Information technology is thought that 1 in v of all hoglets die before they leave the nest.

When hedgehog litters get out the nest and disperse they are unlikely to meet once more as they alive solitary lives.

Hedgehogs are not ordinarily sexually mature in the year of their nascency but embark convenance in their second twelvemonth. However over wintered juveniles grow and mature quickly, and then sexes should exist kept dissever when over wintering.