Dignitas for Hedgehogs

 Well most of you know we have had a mummy and daddy hedgehog living in our garage for the last 5 years, they came every autumn and started booting the cats away from their food bowl so they could feed up ready to hibernate.  2 years ago they had a baby and they became a family and still sort the safety of our garage.

Until we mistakenly took Daddy hedgehog to Mrs Tiddy winkles to get a tick removed and they kepted him saying we wernt allowed to have him and they didn't believe us when we told them how they lived.  Mummy hedgehog spent a week snuffling around trying to find her missing partner then disappeared with her baby.

But we were so happy when she returned this year with her baby some what bigger.  As you know we made the hedgehogs a little hotel to stay in as baby hedgehog with his in experience climbed into the coal sack and took a lot of plastic with him.

Well after a month we noticed something a bit wiffy and that silly baby hedgehog was still running around the garage and had not hibernated and that meant only one thing ....

Mummy hedgehog had coughed it in our little hotel our family of 3 now just 1 baby,  Mummy hedgehog was the ripe old age of  5 years old, that we know of which i believe is quiet old for a hedgehog.  Sophie thinks she died of a broken heart as she didn't have daddy hedgehog any more.

We wonder what the future will bring for baby hedgehog who is still not hibernating and still has a fascination for plastic.  The future is not looking bright for the ball of spikes.

Hedgehog hotel

We are so lucky we have hedgehogs visit us each year and as they have babies they teach their babies that it is safe to hibernate in our garage and we have had up to 3 living in the garage one year i have a feeling they might have been a family as there was a large one and a mummy one with her baby.  They are supposed to be solitary but there are always a few knocking about in the our logs.

This year i don't think baby got the idea as he made his hibernation nest right in the middle of the walkway of our garage and had dragged loads of plastic bags and a huge amount of muddy leaves from the garden and we have been tentatively stepping about him as he snuffles around us helping himself to the cats biscuits.

Sophie and i decided that he needed to be moved before he was squashed so made him a new safer luxury home.  Using an OJ cardboard box for warmth that was surrounded with plastic to keep the wet and damp and wind off him.  We blocked up the hole in the back with daddies car sponge (sshhh dont tell him) and then filled the box with an old towel and completed his new pad with a good handful of his smelly leaves, as hedgehogs don't have great eye sight but excellent sense of smell.

Sophie wanted to make the hedgehog feel welcome so made him a sign and looking at it now i realise i put it upside down text wise as i placed it up with the happy hedgehog but Sophie didn't mind and we cant wait to see if the hedgehog is there tomorrow, but with a free supply of cat food and water why would he want to leave.

Spiny Norman strikes again

We have hedgehogs, we first noticed them in September when it was still warm and i left the back door open in the kitchen and they were happily scoffing back the cat food our cat had not eaten. We were really surprised and quite astonished, they ended up being regular visitors as i left door open nightly for them and they cleaned the bowls at the end of the day much to the annoyance of the cats who were powerless to do anything against all those spins.