Prickles - My hedgehog rescue

Day 5.

Hey everyone. Had a great night watching fireworks with my family and I'm glad the Starling Firework Formation team went down well.

As a lot of people including the RSPB were trying to make everyone check their bonfires for hedgehogs I thought I'd tell you about a hedgehog I met.

Prickles (Erinaceus europaeus)

A few years ago we found Prickles just outside our house in the middle of the day. He was very small as you can see better from the photo below. We watched him for a while as he was sat in the middle of the road not knowing what to do with himself. Being quite worried about him we contacted a local wildlife sanctuary to ask what to do. As he was too little to survive on his own they told us how best to feed him up to a good weight if his parents didn't show up. They didn't and as he kept wandering around the road we moved him into a nearby part of our garden to keep him safe from cars. We waited, but still no sign of parents.

Me (Homo sapiens) & Prickles

So we decided to look after him and feed him up. Goats milk from a syringe and bits of chicken, little and often. He really liked it. I had to stroke his stomach after feeding too to help him digest as apparently mother hedgehogs do this too. I helped in the day time and my Mum was really kind and got up to do night feeds while he was very little.

Eventually he got big enough and heavy enough to have a chance of looking after himself. We built a hedgehog shelter in the garden and set him free there. He hung around there quite happy and hibernated there over the winter. We put bits of food out now and again to help him along. There's lots of hedgehogs around now, my Dad saw three in the garden at once, so I like to think that Prickles moved on and had his own family.

There's a great website all about hedgehogs by britishhedgehogs.org.uk which tells you loads of useful things about these lovely little creatures.

Zach