Prickly Visitor
This morning, when I pulled back the heavy curtains from the double-glazed sliding doors facing the garden, I saw a grey, blurry blob moving alongside the wall; quite slowly but with an implied sense of urgency. I squinted: it could only be a hedgehog. I went upstairs to recover my glasses and sure enough, there it was, moving about restlessly in the unaccustomed sunlight. It must have tumbled down the low brick wall and was now unable to get back out onto the lawn. Moving about so much must have cost it a lot of energy and it looked small for this time of year.
We briefly debated feeding it, but with what? There was chicken for tonight, but it was raw and hedehogs can get salmonella, too. Plus I did not want it to get used to us. I reckoned it is still early enough for it to fatten up naturally before the winter. Then I remembered that about a week ago, all the slugs had died. For several days, every time we went into the garden we had to scrape grey-green goo from our soles. I don’t know whether this is normal or whether it is the result of some kind of slug-plague. Still, the best course of action would be to put the hedgehog behind the shed for now and keep an eye on it.
I weighed it: 300g. Not in bad condition, judging from the comparative lack of ticks and mites between the spines. Looking a bit haggard, but that was to be expected.
Oh shit, according to the hedgehog society, they are not fully grown until they weigh 500g and in autum should approach 700g, eeeek! Looks like I’ll have to find it tonight (I leave it to rest during the day; hedgehogs are night active) and care for it. We have a shed which would be suitable to keep it in. But who will look after it when I’m away? John recently vetoed getting as much as a rabbit!
Alright here’s some advice: feed on cat-or dog food, but not fish varieties. No bread or milk (thought so; most adult mammals lack lactase and milk gives them—occasionally fatal—diarhoea). They can eat chicken or meat, but obviously not over-salted. Control ectoparasites with preparations made for birds.
Since cats get into the garden, I have to construct a special feeding station. There’s plenty of material lying about. At some stage I’ll construct a box which the cats can’t enter, but for now I may have to do something with twigs. Anyway, I suspect that the neighbourhood cats have long since changed from their nocturnal habits; they are out and about all day and likely to curl up in front of the heater at night. We’ll see.
I Google a bit more: it looks like we’ll have to keep this beast over the winter, and it will have to be at room temperature. Cheers.
Denni