Thrill and excitement of 100% Su

Welcome to the Summer/ mid-year edition of our Hedgehog rescue newsletter - we hope that you all enjoy it! We are thrilled to announce that ALL of the baby/young hedgehogs have survived, that we have taken-in ourselves and cared for by our own Volunteers, giving us a 100% success-rate for this year so far!! They are all now "fit again" healthy little (or not so little!) hedgehogs, all weaned off onto solids and one already large enough to be released back into the wild right now, while the others almost so. It is all really exciting, and we are now asking the question - can we do it in September as well? This is thanks to a massive amount of hard work and dedication from within our charity organization as a whole. Our Volunteers sharing in the delight, as they are part of this achievement.

We have been receiving a lot of lovely comments - another result of all our efforts - and have been told that this is one heck of an achievement, as hedgehogs are among the most difficult of the small wild mammals to hand-rear. And it has not been without its difficulties, as all of the hoglets were quite sick and dehydrated, when arrived - and had started to stagger or wobble. Some needing more intensive incubation and syringe-feeding than others, one of them was chilled to the core despite it being Summer, so badly that it was a number of days before this baby was able to maintain a healthy body temperature, by itself. Believe it or not, it is common to find chilled hedgehogs (usually little orphans) with hypothermia at the height of Summer - it is these young ones that lay flat out in the direct sunlight, desperately trying to get warm. They are not sunbathing for pleasure, believe me! They are very sick, and need urgent help.

Last year, we thought that we couldn't beat our 100% success for 0 - 6 week hoglets, which we had from June to around the beginning of October. This included whole families (litters) surviving, some against the odds,as did in the previous year also, (2006). This year the success includes both non-weaned and weaned young/juveniles, of course. Not only all of them have survived and pulled through, but we are also yet to see any at all with the symptom of bright green-blue jelly stools - a sign of severe worm infestation.

Of course, none of the work could have ever been possible without the support from within all of our Membership - including all of our supporters and Volunteers. Also the excellent veterinary cover that we have! We do need to continue to buy in essential formula-milk powder, more so these days to help keep up with the demand (Esbilac only, for the hoglets - this is expensive) plus more equipment (e.g. for incubation), in order for our work to continue. We've given everything we have got to get to the level that we have reached, so A HUGE THANK YOU, to you ALL!!!

[Pictures at top of page:- Two successfully over-wintered hedgehogs, ready for release back into the wild.]