The Trio

For advice about Hand Feeding & Rearing babies see here

These 3 baby hedgehogs were found abandoned in a front garden. They only were about 1 week old when they were found, their eyes were still closed and were unable to eat or drink on their own. Their mother had been killed on the road and these 3 had been on their own for 3 days, with no food or drink before they were found. They were very cold and dehydrated and needed to be kept on a heat pad, rehydrated with special fluids and fed tiny amounts every hour for the first couple of days. They came to us at the very end of August 2003 They needed hand feeding for several days then as their eyes opened they started to take the Esbilac milk mixed with Hipp baby food from the saucer. We have found that Hipp, being organic, has a better range of baby foods than some of the other brands. They have more meat flavoured foods, which is closer to the hedgehogs natural diet. These especially preferred the Turkey and vegetable and Chicken and Rice flavours, which smell so nice and are extremely palatable and easily digested by the baby hedgehogs. These 3 were some of the sweetest little hedgehogs that we have reared. They all wanted feeding at the same time and if any one of the three was left behind in the box for more than a few seconds, squeaked loudly and demanded attention. They were named Huffy, Cleo & Dotty. Huffy was the boy and named that because he was the most dehydrated and huffed loudly and jumped every time he was touched until he was rehydryated properly. (Dehydrated baby hedgehogs do make a huffing, blowing, puffy noise when touched as their skins are so sensitive) These photos were taken when they were about 2 ½ weeks old and just starting to lap. They reared up fairly quickly, but due to the time of year could not be released as they weren't big enough to hibernate, so were kept in the enclosed garden where they could be kept an eye on. Cleo took a long time to reach a safe weight and now (January 2004) still only weighs just over 550 grams so has had to be kept until the spring. Huffy hibernated for a couple of months or so in the enclosed garden, but is up and around now and will be released when a fine spell occurs and he has regained the weight he lost during hibernation and weighs at least 750m grams Dotty never hibernated at all and kept on eating and growing, so was released in early January 2004 weighing over 1kg and is happily living in one of the hedgehog boxes in the open garden, where she can come and go as she pleases. She is coming for food to the back door every night, where we put out a lot of food for her and the other wild hedgehogs who either haven't hibernated or have woken up due to the mild weather. It took 2 containers of Esbilac milk and lots of jars of Hipp baby food to rear this litter of 3 baby hedgehogs from the time they were found until they were weaned at about 5 or 6 weeks old and able to take and digest the normal solid foods, (puppy food, dog food, cat food and biscuits) Please help us to rear more baby hedgehogs by donating to buy this essential milk.