Hogarth's Hedgehog Rescue

Hogarth's / Spikey's Hedgehog Rescue

Help - I've found a sick hedgie! - Out in the day? - Hedgehog First Aid - Sick Hedgehogs - Injured Hedgehogs - Orphaned Baby Hoglets - Re-hydrating hedgehogs - Adopt-A-Hedgehog - How it all began - Our Rescue Facilities - Hedgie stories - Our Gallery/ Patients - Our Photo Albums - Other wildlife - Artwork - Hedgehogs' Year - Be hedgehog friendly! - Membership/ How to join - Our Newsletter - Latest News - Sales / Fundraising - Open Days/ Events - Please Help Us - Special Thanks - Home-page - Home-page 2 - Home-page 3 - Contact Us - E-Mail Us - Links

Welcome!

To the New web site of ....

Affiliated Member of the British Hedgehog Preservation Society and supported by WildAid Foundation Trust as part of their WildAid Challenge Scheme.

If you have found a sick, injured, orphaned or lost hedgehog, please CLICK HERE

WE ARE THRILLED TO ANNOUNCE THAT WE HAVE AGAIN HAD A 100% SUCCESS WITH HAND-REARING BABY AND YOUNG HOGLETS, DURING SUMMER- AUTUMN, 2008!

Hello! And Thank you for visiting our Site; we hope that you enjoy your visit here!

HELPING HUNDREDS OF WILD ANIMALS EVERY YEAR - GIVING THEM A SECOND CHANCE!

OUT IN THE DAY? THEN SOMETHING IS WRONG! HEDGEHOGS ARE NOCTURNAL.

Hogarth's (Spikey's) Hedgehog Rescue was originally Founded over 15 years ago, back in 1993. It is for the rescue, care and rehabilitation of sick, injured, orphaned and abandoned wild hedgehogs and other wildlife - working closely with leading Vets, with the ultimate aim of releasing all "fit again" animals back into the wild, where they belong. They are rehabilitated in suitable release sites, gardens or other locations with plenty of natural food. It is a major division of/within the Hogarth's Wildlife Rescue, is affiliated to the B.H.P.S. and has been supported by the excellent charity WildAid Foundation Trust (Phase 2) when in Scotland.

We rely on continued support from the public. Donations of money, food, bedding plus food-collections from pet shops, and other fundraising efforts, are combined with extra fundraising for buying new hospital equipment such as intensive-care units. Our main hospital facilities and contacts are primarily based in the Hinckley & Bosworth area - including Burbage and Hinckley, in Leicestershire, England, UK - whereby we have both indoor and outdoor facilities. These include intensive-care incubators, outdoor pens / enclosures and aviaries, plus hibernation and isolation units; in addition, our Volunteer Carers have their own hutches / cages and indoor spare rooms for overwintering and convalescence. There are also foster homes.

These are currently based in Hinckley, Burbage, Earl Shilton & Barwell, Stoney Stanton, (in Leicestershire) and Atherstone, (in N. Warwickshire), and Nottingham - and this list is growing!

Disabled hedgehogs (e.g. blind, legs missing, etc.) are released in large, fully-enclosed gardens that are constantly monitored.

We also aim to provide as much information as possible about our beautiful, and sadly, often mistreated, prickly friends - whether in the form of advice or as educational material, in the hope that we can help everyone make their own garden areas "hedgehog friendly". HEDGEHOGS ARE NOW CLASSED AS AN ENDANGERED SPECIES! This much-loved animal - the UK's favourite of all garden creatures - is now officially considered an endangered species, as there is real evidence to suggest that the hedgehog is in decline in Britain and therefore needs all the help it can get. If there is anything particular you are looking for about Hedgehogs or other wildlife, we hope you can find what you're looking for, in here!

FLOWER the hedgehog from Gedling, Nottingham - one of the patients in our care during Summer- Autumn, 2007.

Although our hospitalisation facilities are primarily based in S.W. Leicestershire, over the years we have built up a network Membership of contacts around the UK, the active ones all involved in the same kind of wildlife rescue work, as well as non-active Members, too. All Members receive our regular Newsletter/magazine, full of our latest news and features about Hedgehogs, plus any other benefits of Membership, and are always welcome to contribute their own stories, anecdotes, photos and poems.

New Members of all ages are always welcome! If you would like to be added on our Membership mailing-list, please E-MAIL us! All we ask for in return, is a small donation, to help with the funding of our work.

Please click HERE if you want to support us, by making a donation. Or, you might want to sponsor a hedgehog, one of whom is currently in our care! Please read about our popular and ongoing Adopt-A-Hedgehog Scheme.

Within this Site there are pages of information on what to do if you find a sick, injured or orphaned Hedgehog (hyperlinks below). If you see one who is out in the day, this means something is wrong!

OUT IN THE DAY? This means that something is wrong! Hedgehogs are Nocturnal! Click the following hyperlinks to find out what you should do if you have found a sick, injured, orphaned or abandoned hedgehog: Hedgehog First Aid, and Sick hedgehogs, Injured hedgehogs and Orphaned baby hoglets. All sick or injured hogs will probably be suffering from shock; they need WARMTH - extremely important. Please use a high-sided box with a hot water bottle well-wrapped in a towel, CAREFULLY place the hedgehog in the box. Gently covering the casualty with additional towel-material or old woolies will help to keep him/her warm. Please try not to handle the casualty too much when moving him/her to a box. If an orphaned baby, if hungry but not too weak, he/she will be squealing loudly for food! Seriously/ critically ill hedgehogs will be very cold and weak, laying collapsed flat out or on their side and unable to move.

Hypothermia is a killer of any wildlife, and heavy breathing, very bad snuffling/gurgling and bubbles from nose indicates Pneumonia. If you have found more than one baby in the litter or the whole family, please make sure all babies are huddled together for warmth. DO NOT handle them with bare hands if their mother is with them and there is a chance she will continue to suckle them. Try to gather as much of the original nest (leaves, moss, etc.) as possible - wearing gardening gloves to leave no scent on them, then contact someone for advice. However, if the lactating mother is missing it is very likely they will need to be hand-reared (see hyperlinks). PLEASE REMEMBER THAT ALL HEDGEHOGS NEED TO WEIGH AT LEAST 600 GRAMS (APPROX. 1 & 1/4 lb.) TO SURVIVE WINTER HIBERNATION. Any late-born baby hoglets / juveniles weighing less than 600 g. will need to be taken into care during the Winter...

Hedgehog First Aid (please click!).

EXTREMELY IMPORTANT! To avoid the risk of starting Pneumonia, due to flooding of the mouth - Please DO NOT attempt to give any fluid by pipette or syringe into a sick, injured or orphaned hedgehog, until you have contacted us first!

IN AN EMERGENCY....

Make up "international re-hydration fluid" - which is 2 pints boiled water (still warm), with 1 tablespoon of sugar and 1 teaspoon of salt - Re-hydrating hedgehogs (click for information)... Contact us as soon as possible (link to contact page, below), or call your local hedgehog/wildlife rescue centre in your area. We hope to make a complete listing page of all other hedgehog rescue centres we can find, however we have found that this is no easy task. We have found that a lot of callers to us struggle to find rescuers/carers for their area, some locations more than others. This is partly because sadly a number of wildlife rescue centres have been forced to close down for some reason or other during the last few years, while some websites currently on the Internet that list other rescues have the contact details out-of-date (not been updated) and no-where near all the rescues are listed! That sounds like bad news, but don't worry, we and our friends have had great success in linking-up callers with available contacts - there are contacts serving all areas, some areas are very well covered. It should be pointed out that in all cases, veterinary attention is essential!

From the Archives....

JUNE, 2006

"During 2003 - '05, we received calls from literally anywhere in the UK and beyond - during peak seasons, taking up to around 7 or more calls a day! We have been and continue to be very successful in linking-up callers with a genuine hedgehog / wildlife rescuer in their area - within 15 miles or less from them, often only within a mile away from them, that they hadn't heard of or didn't know existed! By the end of each year, we will have helped and rescued hundreds of animals. As well as the other casualties, we have had excellent success with the many babies we have lovingly hand-reared (from as young as newborn), and both 2004 and '05 were our most busy and successful years yet, with casualties (mostly orphan babies / families) arriving from not just locally, but from as far away as Birmingham, Northampton, Nottingham, Retford and Manchester! 2006 patients so far, include a disturbed family - mother hedgehog with babies, from Norton-juxta-Twycross, arriving at the beginning of June. The family were dug out by a pet dog (which happens often) - the babies only newborn. The callers followed our advice closely, using gardening gloves to gather up the family and as much of the original nest as could, being very carefully put in a cardboard box with enough bedding. Utmost care has been taken! The family (and their nest box) being in a quiet, dark, warm corner, the mother able to suckle her young while given access to fresh food and water left every day for her - and 3 weeks later on, mother and babies are still doing fine!"

(The aforementioned Hedgehog family was a success story - two out of the 3 babies that we saw survived and were later released back into the Wild, as was their mother.)

SPECIAL THANKS LATEST - JUNE '06... "We would like to express our deepest Thanks to Georgina Dean in Burbage, who has once again sold plants in aid of our funds, as her chosen charity - this time she has so very kindly raised £160.00 which will go towards buying a brand new Intensive-care Incubator, to add to our essential facilities this year."

To contact us, please click HERE!

Baby Snowy - who we rescued in November, 2000. She was like an albino (pink eyes, nose and skin), but in fact a very rare champagne-blonde, not pure white.

SPECIAL THANKS PAGE - Please click HERE!

Please also check out our Photo Albums!

Some of our pages from in the past...Gallery Autumn - Winter 2002/'03!

OLD LINKS PAGE - "Please check out all these wonderful hedgehog rescue websites (click)!"

Please Sign our Guest Book! Thank you!

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Over the Garden Gate (please visit!)...

An environmentally friendly, interactive UK gardening cyber-community with a border for everyone. Forum and Chat Room, Picture Album (add your own!), Gardening and wildlife information and archives, links and much more!

UIST HEDGEHOGS. Please check out this Link, from our friends at Epping Forest Hedgehog Rescue, to support the evacuation rescue of hedgehogs from the Uist Islands in Scotland. Currently, we are all appealing for suitable gardens to relocate these hedgehogs, (evacuation from the Uist probably taking place in March, '03 onwards). Our appeal has been quite successful so far! We ourselves are sending out a 4-page information letter to all people interested. If the evacuation does take place, it is going to be a mammoth task for us and all other Hedgehog rescue groups involved...hundreds of evacuated hedgehogs will need our care, so we really need generous support, in the form of money or food and bedding supplies.

Hogarth's Hedgehog Rescue

For the Rescue, care and rehabilitation of Sick, injured, orphaned & abandoned Hedgehogs.

Helping hundreds of wild animals every year!

Hogarth's Hedgehog Rescue

For the Rescue, care and rehabilitation of Sick, injured, orphaned & abandoned Hedgehogs.

Helping hundreds of wild animals every year!

This Site last updated on (Tues.) 26th/ May,/ 2009.

Hogarth's / Spikey's Hedgehog Rescue