Hedgie the hoglet 🦔

Editing to add: this story has a sad ending 😢

Meet the latest addition! This is Hedgie the baby hedgehog and we are going to care for her for a few weeks until she is stronger and until we have to leave Paleochora.

Our friend Flora found her in her garden last Friday, having heard squeaking noises and gone to investigate. She must have fallen down from the higher ground. We couldn’t locate the nest or the mother, but we are going to put her back in this same area once she is able to eat independently, if she survives.

Her eyes aren’t even open yet so she must be under two weeks old. She weighed 27g last Friday when she was found.

At the moment, she is taking kitten formula from a syringe, about 3ml at a time, every two hours. The rest of the time she is in a box with a hot water bottle and a blanket. We place her on top of the hot water bottle, under the blanket so that she is cozy and warm, but in the dark, but she tends to crawl to underneath the hot water bottle! We think this is because mother hedgehogs lie on top of their babies to keep them warm while they sleep, and she is trying to replicate this.

Like orphaned kittens, hoglets need help in order to urinate and defecate. Their mothers would normally lick their nether regions in order to stimulate good digestion and to trigger urination and defecation. To replicate this, we must stroke her tummy and genital area gently with a cotton ball warmed with warm water, for 30-60 seconds, both before and after a feed.

Hedgie is getting stronger by the day, although not putting on a huge amount of weight (3g in total in four days). Even though she is so tiny, she is feisty which is great to see. This will stand to her when she is returned to Flora’s garden.

We had never seen a hoglet before and had no idea how tiny they are. She fits in Olwen’s palm.  We know a lot more about hedgehogs now than we did last Friday!

Well, on her sixth night with us, poor wee Hedgie died. We are all very upset and also surprised, as we felt that she was doing well and growing in strength. Apparently it is very difficult to hand raise a hoglet successfully. She fed well at her 3am feed and she was cleaned and returned to her box with a fresh hot water bottle; but when I went to pick her up for her next feed at 5.15am, she was gone.

RIP Hedgie, we are so sorry that you didn’t make it.