The Lemon Fool

If You See A Dead Hedgehog - It Could Be Hibernating

If you find a hedgehog in your garden or somewhere on the street, make a hole in a cardboard box and in a dry, safe and quiet place so it can spend the cold months there.

Advice about caring for hedgehogs. They are an endangered species. The above link offers some advice on caring for hedgehogs that you could see and assume are dead. More probable they are hibernating at this time of year.


AiY(D)

AsleepInYorkshire wrote:If You See A Dead Hedgehog - It Could Be Hibernating

If you find a hedgehog in your garden or somewhere on the street, make a hole in a cardboard box and in a dry, safe and quiet place so it can spend the cold months there.

Advice about caring for hedgehogs. They are an endangered species. The above link offers some advice on caring for hedgehogs that you could see and assume are dead. More probable they are hibernating at this time of year.


AiY(D)

Sounds just like I feel at the moment. If you find me in the street……,,……….

Anyway far too many of them are disregarded by motorists and get killed on our roads so it is up to all of us to watch out for them. The trouble is they are prickly customers to move off the road……..

Dod

They are endangered, amongst other things, by foxes...and the people who encourage urban foxes.

I've sometimes found them hibernating in the grassbox of our lawnmower, which I'm sure must have seemed like a good idea at the time. Human comes along, starts up the lawnmower for a midwinter trim, and half-asleep Mr Tiggywinkle is faced with the choice between (i) getting suffocated by a huge dump of grass clippings, or (ii) exiting the grassbox into the path of the flying blades. So far, both of us have been lucky.

BJ

Sadly we haven't had any hedgehog visitors this year - always and abundence in previous years. We have signs of a visiting fox though, so maybe that's the answer.

We live a l o n g way from a proper road so I don't think that traffic is the problem.

Fingers crossed that they might find their way back next year.

dubre wrote:They are endangered, amongst other things, by foxes...and the people who encourage urban foxes.

Hmm ... we should do our best to look after the environment. I think there's sufficient evidence to suggest that in the UK we aren't doing as well as we think. And if I climb into my pulpit, it's not going to be the best use of my time. In the space of my lifetime species which proliferated when I was young have now become endangered. Swifts and house martins for example. Plenty more. I don't have the words to describe how that makes me feel. I’ll settle for sadness.

We have two dogs. As puppies they tried to entertain themselves playing with hedgehogs. They found it wasn’t the sort of fun they anticipated. They also seem to have a healthy agreement with the local fox who pops in every now and again. They have the most fun with the squirrels and pigeons though. They chase them relentlessly, and have, after 4 years, still not come close to catching them. The squirrels seem to enjoy tormenting the dogs .

Like many animals’ hedgehogs have predators. That’s natural. It’s nature. I can’t stop hedgehog’s predators. I’ve settled for raising a little awareness on The Fool about hedgehogs. It’s a small piece of information, but now it’s shared it may come in useful. It’s as simple as that really, isn’t it?

This is an interesting webpage which outlines hedgehog’s predators. It doesn’t seem too focused on urban foxes as a significant issue for hedgehogs, although it’s just one page on one website.

Hedgehog predators

Foxes
Hedgehogs and foxes can live together peacefully. Foxes sometimes attack hedgehogs, although usually adult hogs are protected by their spines. However, hoglets can be vulnerable to foxes, and we do see leg injuries where a fox or other predator has tried and failed to catch the hedgehog. Urban foxes’ stomachs contain hedgehog parts now and then, though this is probably because they eat roadkill. Otherwise, foxes and hedgehogs often live happily together in our cities.

Take care

AiY(D)

dubre wrote:They are endangered, amongst other things, by foxes...and the people who encourage urban foxes.

Five or six years ago, we had 5 foxes playing together on our lawn one evening, and a hedgehog came meandering down the garden and walked among the foxes. They took a mild interest, had a sniff, then just left the hedgehog to continue on its journey.

--kiloran

We had quite a few hedgehogs a few year ago when they vanished. We noticed a badger on the wildlife camera and assumed that it was something to do with this.

A couple of weeks ago I put a squirrel trap out baited with unsalted peanuts. I didn't catch a squirrel but got a hedgehog! I noticed that the peanuts had gone.

Previously we had used catfood but that caused problems as we have two cats!

Now we leave unsalted peanuts out and have counted up to three hedgehogs at a time feasting on peanuts.

I've told this story before, so apologies. Some years ago, I put down a couple of beer traps for slugs in my veg patch. Glasses or small bowls, half-filled with the cheapest own-brand beer I could find, and buried neck-deep in the soil.

Two days later, several slugs had drowned blissfully in the drink. A good start! The next day, both traps had been hauled out of the ground and all the slugs had disappeared. Hedgehog happy, slugs that had died happy, yours truly very happy indeed. That's what I call a win-win!

BJ