Tag Archive | hibernation

On The Up

Oct20

I don’t know where the time goes and I cant believe that its 8 days since I wrote my Blog. In that time however I have managed to establish some sort of equilibrium and am much calmer.

Earlier in the week Jasper alerted me to a juvenile hedgehog eating its dinner in the night garden. It was clearly obvious that the hedgehog was not particularly big, so I asked hubby to bring me the scales from the kitchen.

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I weighed “Cheeky Charlie” (named because he/she didn’t curl up for long) and found that the 375gms was not sufficient for him/her to survive winter hibernation. I understand that hedgehogs should be at least 500-600gms to survive over winter so I prepared the cat carrier, complete with towels, hot water bottle, newspaper, food and water for the hedgehog’s overnight stay with us, before taking him/her to the local Wildlife Hospital the next day.

The hospital welcomed the new addition and promised that we can have him/her back in the Spring.

The hospital will keep the juvenile hedgehogs, not ready for hibernation, in warm conditions so they don’t try to hibernate. This would probably kill them as they don’t have enough body fat to live on whilst their body slows down. Hopefully, after a Spring and Summer back in our garden Cheeky Charlie will be ready to hibernate this time next year.

In the meantime, soft as I am, I have built the hogs a shelter so they don’t have to eat their dinner in the rain……..

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Am I daft?

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Autumn update-making hedgehog houses

Oct9

Brrrrrr……we are still having some gorgeous sunny days but there is definitely a chill in the air which wasn’t obvious in September. A sure sign that we are in the midst of autumn with it’s misty mornings and dewy evenings leaving a damp film over the garden.

Since my last post, I been focussing on the hedgehogs. No surprise there, but now I am thinking about them approaching hibernation time and making sure that they have somewhere safe, dry and comfortable to curl up. Obviously most hedgehogs manage to find a nest; in Pampas grass, under sheds and often in compost heaps where the heat of the rotting process is a welcome extra but giving them shelter in addition is always a good idea as they can move between nests during the hibernation season.

I bought 2 ready-made  hedgehog houses earlier in the year and they have been in-situ for a few months now but then I spotted instructions for  making a hedgehog house online courtesy of St Tiggywinkles and I decided to have a go myself.

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I also found some roofing felt in the garage so now the hedgehogs have waterproof roofs as well.

.These three houses already have new gardens to go to so I hope that some lucky hedgehog will find a comfy shelter to bed down in for the winter!

This is where I hid mine…..

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Hoglets

Jul11

Following the sightings of a number of different size adult hedgehogs over the last few weeks, the last two evenings have seen the appearance of a couple of baby hedgehogs, hoglets.

I think that they are two different hoglets; it’s difficult to tell but looking at the size of the feet, and shape of the nose, I believe they are two babies, not one. Based on their size, I also believe that they are 2016 babies, probably born in early May. They are too small to be 2015 babies as they wouldn’t have survived hibernation at this size. They need to be at least 450-500g when they hibernate and so I am pretty confident that they are this year’s model.

Let’s hope that mum has another litter soon so we have lots more hoglets running around the garden.

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How cute is this?