Wildlife UK Forum - Discuss the UK countryside and wildlife

How many of you feed hedgehogs in your garden. And if you do, what do you give them?

The hedgehog is the most common mammal that we deal with at Vale Wildlife, treating between 800 - 1,000 every year and I am amazed at the number of people who still believe that they should be given bread & milk.

Cow's milk contains lactose, a natural sugar, but it cannot be digested by mammals. Larger mammals such as cats, & even us humans cope with it without too many problems because of our size (although I wouldn't recommend giving it to cats either!). But for small mammals drinking cow's milk can actually be fatal. The smaller the mammal, the more problems it can cause.

Bread is no good either as it fills the animal up but does not have much goodness in it. The animal feels as if it has eaten plenty, but lacks the vitamins & minerals that it needs to stay healthy. We have seen ducks & geese, fed bread on a daily basis, starving to death because of their poor diet.

Tell us about the hedgehogs that visit your garden.

I have to admit I never knew that milk could be so harmful to small mammals. If they can't drink cows milk, is there any milk that is available that they can drink? Or should you just stick to water?

Also, what food would you recommend for hedgehogs?

Thanks

Hi Bill

Don't worry - you are not alone!
Goats milk is much lower in lactose than cows. For cats, you can get specially formulated low-lactose milk.
But for all mammals, it is best to stick to water & forget the milk altogether.

You can buy food especially made for hedgehogs, either tinned or dry, but a good quality, meaty cat food is just as good. The addition of a few cat biscuits is also a good idea as hedgehogs are renowned for suffering from dental problems & the crunchy biscuits help to clean their teeth as they are eating.
Hedgehogs also love mealworms, but these should be given as an occassional treat, not an everyday food.

Thank you for the tips! I hadn't heard the one about cat biscuits before, I will try to get some.

We knew no milk as milk = diarhorrea. We have been advised not to feed fish based cat food either. We feed hedgehog proprietry stuff or car food based on meat products. We have tried to spread the word. The other thing we were told was that people who leave cat food out during the day are encouraging hedgehogs to come out during the day also which is not right for them. We hadn't heard about cat biscuits also.

If anyone around the Manchester area find babies later this year please contact us either on this website or the knowhere site for Farnworth & we will envdeavour to pick the hedgepigs up. & take them to rescue.
Caroline , Have you looked at our hedgehog pics on previous threads

Hi
No I haven't seen your pics. Which thread are they on?
There is nothing really wrong with fish-based cat food, it's just that most hedgehogs don't like it.
I don't think that putting cat food out in the daytime encourages hedgehogs out at the wrong time, but it is a bit pointless as they are nocturnal & if you put it out on a day like today (hot & sunny here) by the time hedgehogs get up at dusk, it will be dried up & probably covered in fly eggs so no good at all.
We also take in underweight hedgehogs in the autumn/winter but because of our mild winters now, hedgehogs are often out & about throughout the whole year as long as it is mild. Whereas we used to keep underweight youngsters in until the spring, we now release all the year round as long as they are up to weight & there is a mild spell.

There are some pictures of our resident hedgehogs in the thread at http://www.wildlifeuk.net/who-has-a-resi...t-59.html.

How recently have hedgehogs begun to start being out all year round?

It does all depend on the weather, but we haven't routinely kept all hedgehogs in over winter for the past 3 or 4 years. As long as they are 600gms+ & healthy, we release them during a mild spell (we study the weather forecasts regularly so that we know when we are going to get a week or so of mild weather). In the summer months we release at 500gms+.
I have attached a photo of two baby hedgehogs from the Hospital.

Fantastic pic.

We generally put out cat biscuits and fresh water just as it's getting dark. We have also found that they are particularly fond of a few raisins that have been soaked in water for a couple of hours to plump them up.

Lovely pic wait till Kingfisher has her fix. They are so cute.

Pure bliss! They are darling. How long does it take for the spines to harden, and how old are those two?

Kingfisher

The spines harden within hours of birth, but the initial, white spines begin to be replaced after a few days with the normal brown ones. These two are around 5-7 days old.

Wonderful picture, thank you for posting. How long will it take for them to get to the stage where you can release them? Or as these ones are reared from very young will they not have the skills to survive in the wild?

Survival instincts in wildlife are exactly that, instincts. Animals don't need to be taught what to do. They may need some practice to become skilled at it but the survival instinct is there from birth. Most wildlife, if reared properly, can be released successfully into the wild. Problems occur when well-meaning people try to rear a single animal which only sees people & never sees its own kind. They then become imprinted, reliant on people & would then not survive if released. Orphaned or abandoned wild animals need to be put with others of their own kind as soon as possible, with human contact being kept to an absolute minimum.
Hedgehogs aren't quite as difficult in this respect as other wildlife as they are one of the few animals which get very used to humans without it causing a major survival problem for them.
These two will be with us for probably around 6 weeks & will be released once they reach around 550gms. They are 2 of around 60 hedgehogs we have in at the moment.

Wildliferescuer - have you witnessed any problems this year caused the changing weather patterns affecting the breeding cycle of hedgehogs? I had heard of instances where litters were being produced too late for the hoglets to achieve a weight that would enable them to survive the winter. Also, with a mild winter, have there been problems with hedgehogs coming out of hibernation too soon?