Hedgehogs

When I moved to my present house, I was really excited to see a whole family of hedgehogs sharing my garden. I really love these little creatures, they are really fascinating to watch scurrying around the garden. A couple of years ago I found one of the tiny babies in my garden during the daytime, so instinctively I knew something was wrong. I had to take the children to school, so the little hedgehog was wrapped in a warm towel, placed in a washing up bowel, and after I dropped the children off I took it to the vets. The poor little thing was covered in ticks which made it very anaemic and unfortunately the little hedgehog didn't make it. That was a very sad day for me. Thankfully though, the rest of the hedgehog family seem to be thriving. They live between my garden fence and a long brick wall boundary wall next door, so they have a very safe area away from predators. Some of the older hedgehogs are huge! I do feed them to supplement their normal diet of earthworths, slugs, beetles etc. They have a dish of hedgehog food under a covered cat litter tray hood top, which keeps the rain off it. 'Hog Hotel' is visited every night by all the hedgehogs before they make their way down my side path and then under the gate. They regularly scrape the gravel out of the way of the gate when they get too big to get under it! You can actually tell the age of a hedgehog by looking at their feet; if their nails are long they are likely to be young, if they are scuffed and worn they are old apparently!