Poorly hedgehog hanging on

This poorly hedgehog was brought in earlier this week.  He has no apparent injuries but just to look at him we can see he’s not well.  He’s neither curled up in defensive mode or out and active.  He won’t unwrap  himself and just wants to be still and be left alone.

Mostly it’s eating slugs that cause these symptoms – gardeners put poison down, the slugs eat it, the hedgehog eats the slug and that’s it, goodbye to another hedgehog.  We try to be optimistic and sometimes it’s a mild toxicity and the hedgehog recovers -we hope that will be the case for this one.

There are a lot of ways to get rid of slugs without putting poison down – salt kills them, they don’t like coffee grounds or broken egg shells.  Put half a grapefruit down and they’ll congregate on it overnight, you can dispose of them next morning.   I’m told beer has the same attraction for them.   Anything that’s prickly to slide over deters them.  You can also buy copper tape to put round planters and pots – they won’t cross this barrier.  Using natural methods will help save the hedgehogs whose numbers are declining every year.

This one is adult and in good condition, also he is eating which is a good sign. Hang on little fella.