I'm going to try and answer all the questions his arrival raised:
Firstly he was nursed back to health & looked after by a wonderful woman who runs the local hedgehog rescue service entirely self funded & voluntary. She currently has about 80 'pigs' in & will probably have most of them until next year as time is running out to release them before the weather gets too cold. I found her by googling 'hedgehog rescue' & the name of our nearest city & suggest you do the same if you can offer a good home. Gardens must be pesticide free & all hazards including wire, dogs etc must be addressed first. If you have a totally enclosed garden (walls preferred) you might be suitable to take on an injured 'pig' as they often come into rescue with eyes & limbs damaged beyond repair but a healthy 'pig' needs the space of approximately 10 gardens to roam in.
That brings me to the next comment which quite rightly queried my dogs' reaction to them. As both my girls are terriers they'd love nothing more than to hunt & probably kill him
but as you can see in the photo above DH built a VERY solid gate & fence earlier in the year in preparation for our temporary guests and because we didn't want the dogs to ruin the garden. They have the patio & top of the drive to lounge on & also get plenty of walks so it works well. For us we have a garden that doesn't smell of dogs & the flower beds & lawn aren't ruined. For the wildlife who also live in our garden, they have safety, peace & quiet with a ready supply of food & water as we have installed two bird tables & a bird bath.
Squirrel
Bryony you beat me to it! I took the garden photo on my phone & then wrote the rest of the post via my laptop & before I could publish the changes you had already commented! First prize for a speedy commenter!
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4 comments:
Lovely! How is DH/you/the hedgehog?
Having 2 hunting dogs myself, I noticed they do not harm Hedgehogs. We have plenty here (we even have some little ones) and every now and then I will go out because my dogs are barking like mad and don't come in. Usually they found a hedgehog and they just bark at the round pointy thing from a little distance. I think they just don't like the spikes all that much! :D And I can assure you they'll catch about everything else moving around here!
Hope Spike is having a nice time!
Well, you know, I like to be on the ball (at least sometimes) ;D
I think it's cool that you have hedgies in your garden. We don't have them here in the States. My DD has had a few African Pygmy Hedgehogs as pets, but they are not hardy (or all that healthy either, they tend to get cancer).
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