10/12/2024
I had a tiny 150g hoglet arrive yesterday. Lots of Lungworm and Roundworm.
You would not expect hoglets in December but clearly climate change is having an effect on our hedgehogs.
Three things that can trigger hibernation are temperature, age and availability of food.
Our warmer winters means hedgehogs are going into hibernation later, in fact, some will not hibernate at all. If they do hibernate, it is normal for a hibernating hedgehog to wake occasionally, which is one reason we ask you to keep putting out a little food and water throughout winter. Milder periods mean they are likely to be waking more often. Waking from hibernation is a huge drain on their fat reserves and with the lack of natural food resources this fat is not replaced. This can result in hedgehogs dying in hibernation.
Normally breeding season, called the rut, runs from mid-April until September but as seen now, can start earlier and continue into autumn when mild. The little lad I have in icu proves that they are now also breeding in winter. The problem being, they do not have the natural food resources to feed themselves or for the hoglets to eat when they leave mum to fend for themselves. The only available food is worms ,slugs and snails. These, however, carry lungworm, roundworm and fluke so this is likely to be one reason we are seeing so many hedgehogs of all ages with extremely heavy burdens of internal parasites.
Milder wetter weather is also why there has been an increase in tick infestations with myself and other rescues reporting hedgehogs arriving with hundreds of ticks. My record this year was over 400 on one hedgehog.
Milder winters mean the ticks are not being killed off.
I have also seen hedgehogs arriving with flystrike much later in the year.
These are just some of the problems caused by milder winters not to mention our wetter summers, where many of our hedgehogs favourite insects are drowning and again hedgehogs are struggling to find food.
This is the little boy who came in yesterday. He is called Marvel.
I have started to treat him for the parasites, which is a frightening time for me when dealing with such tiny, delicate little one. However, so far so good. He has eaten well and gained 30g last night which I was pleased to see.