17/11/2024
How To Help Hedgehogs In Autumn and Winter time.
Please check your local rescues advice.
This is specifically for our followers here in ESSEX, one of the mildest parts of the country. For other areas please check your local rescues advice.
FIRSTLY ANY HEDGEHOG OUT IN DAYLIGHT NEEDS HELP WHAT EVER THE SIZE.
The following refers only to those hedgehogs showing natural behaviour and only appearing after dark.
So as the temperatures drop many of your regular visitors will be disappearing from your gardens. Older, more experienced hedgehogs often settle down to hibernate well in advance of the drop in temperature. First time hibernators born this year may take longer to settle and understand what their bodies are trying to tell them. Temperatures below 5 degrees for a few nights can trigger hibernation.
There is no magic safe weight for hibernation. Those over 600g have the best chance of surviving hibernation, but many hedgehogs hibernate at much lower weights and survive.
Going in and out of hibernation is an extremely complex business. Mistakes can be made and the process can fail causing death, no matter the size or health of the hedgehog.
So next week as the temperatures drop many more hedgehogs may be triggered to hibernate. Your task is to keep support feeding and provide a source of water. Make sure water sources don't freeze over if you can! Keep providing plenty hibernation materials for bedding such as dried leaves or a plant pot on it's side full of barley straw. Not got a hedgehog house yet? Now would be a good time to buy one and position it in the garden. A good sized house with a wood floor and a removable lid. The bedroom area ideally needs to be big enough to hold 2 loaves of bread. Many on the market are way too small and flimsy.
Most importantly. DON'T PANIC. Any hedgehog seen out in daylight obviously needs help, something is wrong. But out at night visiting feeding stations, active and a good healthy shape LEAVE ALONE. Picking them up and interfering unnecessarily, is very stressful for a prey animal. Coming into rescue is very stressful.
That “small” hedgehog visiting your garden at night is possibly not as small as you think. In the photo the hedgehog on the left is just over 300g and quite capable of doubling in size in a couple of weeks IF support fed. We need these juveniles to stay out in the wild doing what they need to do. Coming into the rescue is stressful and can cause more problems than it solves. At 300g most have left mum and are independent. So please keep support feeding any juveniles out at night and over 300g. They still have time to get up to hibernation weight. before the real winter weather arrives here in Essex. ( If it does at all )
Why are we saying this? Well because the hedgehog on the right of the photo is only 100g and stands NO CHANCE of surviving. It should still be with mum and is potentially not totally weaned. These are the ones that desperately need our help to have any chance of survival. We can’t help them if we’re full of healthy 300g+ juveniles.
So what we do need you to look out for are tiny hoglets out at night ON THEIR OWN. We're talking 250g or less. The size that should still be with mum. At that size and smaller they struggle to regulate their own body temperature. IF IN DOUBT CONTACT US FIRST.
Remember we're only human. We have limited space in the rescue and must priortise those that need us most. The sick, the injured and the teeny tiny hoglets. The rest need YOUR help to stay in the wild where they belong.
