Spike was our first hedgehog. In some ways, he was the cause of all this. He wandered into our garden in the Autumn. Joan offered him some dog food, which he devoured rapidly. The next day he was still in the garden in the daytime. We brought him in and took him to a local carer. She told us he would need to be fed over the winter, and kept awake until he weighed about 600 grams.
Joan decided that this was something she could do, so we decided to
give it a go. Little did we know what was to come from this
descision! We
kept Spike in a rabbit hutch under the carport. Spike grew, and grew
until he weighed about 900 grams. Eventually we were told to take him
off the heatpad and reduce his food. He then slipped into a natural
hibernation.
Next spring, Spike woke up, and we released him into a hedgehog box in
out back garden. We kept putting food out for him ans he returned every
evening. We could watch him from the conservatory windows. We know that
Spike had fully reverted to the wild. If Joan tried to approach him at
night, he would get up on his legs and run off at a rapid rate of knots.
The fact that Spike reverted to being wild has given us a lot of confidence to treat and handle hedgehogs. We know that most hedgehogs can be returned to nature without problems, even if they have been with humans for some time.
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