Baby hedgehogs doing well

Feeding baby hedgehogs isn’t easy.  It ‘s not the two hourly routine, it’s that they don’t take their milk easily.  Naturally, they want to feed from their mother so having a bottle is a strange experience for them.  Initially they are hungry and suck too hard, milk goes everywhere, then they fall asleep or start wriggling and give up.  It takes a lot of patience to keep them suckling nicely so it was a wonderful day when some of our famous five began to drink and eat for themselves.

We’ve kept putting a saucer of milk out for them and they’ve been slurping a tiny bit of pureed food down for a while.   They have their bottle in rota, the littlest is first, the others have to wait their turn.  This eventually became too much for Biggie.   He was too hungry to wait and that did it – he starting drinking properly for himself.   Then Huffie  joined in and next they were enjoying a proper meal.

It’s made a huge difference already.  They sleep for most of the night now and when they wake up they start squeaking – where’s breakfast?    Milk first, then meat and then back into their warm den to sleep it off.    The little ones aren’t quite there yet and are still having a bottle but they’re not taking as much and it won’t be long before they are tucking in too.

Huffie is enjoying a saucer of goat’s milk.   Mr.Fluffy is the only one not to join in – he was already eating well when he came in and after having some huge meals he decided to hibernate.   We have other hedgehogs who’ve gone to sleep in their hay nests to see the winter out  so we’ll see them all again in the spring.