If you are sniffing and snuffling and fed up with this freezing weather, take heart from Harry.
His nose was streaming and he was sneezing all the time when he was taken to Hedgehog Bottom in Thatcham.
Now he’s just about as happy and relaxed as a prickly chap can be, thanks to tender loving care from Gill Lucraft – who currently has more than 80 at her house.
But there is no time for the hedgehog expert and her team of dedicated volunteers to rest on their laurels.
Harry may be on the mend, but there are still 182 other Mr and Mrs Tiggywinkles in the hedgehog rescue’s care – a bumper intake of invalids and casualties, partly due to strange changes in the weather.
Ms Lucraft, who is 56 and also finds time to be a web developer, never set out to found a hedgehog rescue.
Her fence fell down in floods in 2007. When a repair man started raking up leaves to replace it, a pile of them promptly ran away. Ms Lucraft looked out for that little chap, started researching – and, just like the funny little creatures, it rolled from there.
Today, Hedgehog Bottom is a small charity, which means it is a non-profit organisation, in Ms Lucraft’s Chapel Street home.
Yesterday there were around 85 hedgehogs in the dining room, many more in hutches outside and some were out with ‘foster parents’.
Ms Lucraft, who lives with long-suffering partner Harvey Prince, told getreading: “We are going to have to start raising funds for a dedicated rescue – it’s ridiculous, there are so many hedgehogs.
“I think it is a combination of people becoming more aware, then the weather. If people see a hedgehog during daytime, they pick it up and bring it in. Last year, a lot more hedgehogs were picking up parasites because of the wet weather, and then in the really wet weather nests were washed out.”
The climate also seems to have played havoc with the natural breeding seasons of spring and autumn.
Ms Lucraft said: “Because the weather is so weird, there are a lot more litters in the year and we’ve had babies in November and December. All the rescues are the same, the numbers are hugely up on last year.”
Hedgehog Bottom takes hogs from Maidenhead, Didcot, from right across the other side of Swindon, Bracknell and once even from Hayling Island. But it seems the travelling is necessary, because hedgehogs aren’t easy.
“Caring for them is very specialised, they are the most complicated wildlife we have.
“They get more things wrong with them than anything else and can need treatment like nothing else – if you take a fox to the vet, he’s basically treating a dog, but it’s not like that with hedgehogs,” she said.
A team of 11 keep the rescue running – the other volunteers help with cleaning and feeding, but most of the treatment and medication is down to Ms Lucraft.
The expert says if a hedgehog is out in broad daylight (not dawn or dusk) there is usually something wrong. However, if it is spring and a large hog is scurrying along with a mouthful of leaves, it’s nest-building.
If you think a hog needs help, grab it and take it to the rescue.
Ms Lucraft says if it is a lactating female, it will be taken straight back. If a hedgehog has been down a drain or in a pond, is running in circles and screaming or it is winter and it weighs less than 600g, the Hedgehog Bottom team needs to see it immediately.
Call the charity on 01635 826120.
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Tue Feb 12, 2013 2:05 pm
