Jersey Hedgehog Preservation Group

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The La Haule 2 have become 3 as another sister was found this morning, all 3 are girls! Very small but with all their teeth, should feed themselves......

Another dehydrated independent hoglet from Highlands found on the side of the road, he is very thin and may not do.

And yet again an adult with a nasty infected maggot infested head wound was found and put straight to sleep....so it goes on even this long after the branchage......

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The babe I wrote about yesterday with her legs in the air has now decided to open her eyes at last! so we are now on 4 hourly feeds, but she is not so keen on this idea so I am trying 3 and a half hours between feeds now but will leave it longer overnight so I can get a decent sleep!

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A gardener found a baby down a dry drain a few days ago, again a lucky piglet as she could not get out on her own. If you have uncovered drains round your house or any uncovered hole in your garden, please put something over them even a piece of chicken wire will give the hoglet something to climb up and get out.

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On Thursday I reported on a hoglet found in the road at Highlands by some concerned girls who took him to the receptionist who was still at work in the holidays, luckily...She was a very kind lady who was most concerned and put him in a box with some water. He has been active and is very thin for his size but seems to be quietening down now and is eating for himself.
You can see he is keen to be on the move!

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Have had more weaned hoglets in: Just picked up one found at Maufant Vineries, very hungry and feisty, huffed at me! Hope he will be OK bigger than some of the others weighed in at 120g

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Late one night had a call from a distressed lady, her dog had bitten a large hog. He is a male - so better than if it had been a lactating female - the vet found 4 holes on his back, one nasty deep one, he has eaten and pooed now, so am more hopeful there is no lasting damage, but the wounds have got to heal up before I can let him go again, here is a picture, you can't see the holes very well, but the blood is still on the spines.

If you have a dog who is keen on hedgehogs, please make sure you go with him for his last tinkle of the night or keep him on a lead if you know there are hedgehogs in your garden or wherever you walk him at night.....once they get a taste for hedgehog blood they seem to want to go on doing it. This is one hedgehog hazard which we can prevent with a little forethought and care.

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The baby (from near a log pile) who you saw at 2 weeks old on 11th July next to a matchbox - scroll down for comparison!- is now one month and 2 days old and quite grown up, still yells for attention when he hears me and wants to be fed, even though he doesn't need it anymore!

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Yesterday Pam's post lady and her husband found a hoglet trapped down a sump in the Val de la Mare bunker, very lucky piglet as the husband is an occupation buff, otherwise he would not have gone to check out the bunker and the hoglet would have starved to death as she had fallen down and there was no way out. She was covered in moss, she eats for herself and should be fine!

Have released the Mum and babe I reported on 4th July, babe weighed 464g and Mum had grown to over 1100g, they have gone to a member's garden where there is always food and water provided, very near to where they were found.

Have also released the mature female who had the fish hook in her face, back to where she came from, as the fishing tackle is safely stowed away now!

The kind people who rescued the hoglet from the bunker at Val de la Mare have been back and put escape ramps in place so no other hedgehog will be trapped down the hole if it accidentally falls in. Very many thanks to them, lovely people!

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Really good rescue today. Got a call from the Animals' Shelter, a young man was standing by a dead "mother" hedgehog and a baby in the road in Rue de Craslin. I drove like the wind to get there before the baby wandered off and found them all by the side of the road. The "dead mother" was a very old hedgehog skin of someone who had been run over several days ago by the look of it, but the baby was screaming her head off for help! It was so kind of this young man to stay there guarding the baby all the time until I got there.

The baby is about 3 weeks old, she has some of her teeth and her eyes are open, the yelling was because she was in need of help to have a pee!! She has fed and peed well during the day, she weighs 101g. You can see from the picture she is a wriggly little thing!

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Picked up a family yesterday from a garden which was being cleared, Mum and 4 babes who may be about 9 days old, 2 of them can roll up! Mum seems to be feeding them, but this morning she had moved nests and left 2 babies in the original nest box, have put them all together and they are still all in the same box...will listen out for distress squeaks and only intervene if I have to...... it isn't a good photo but it does show you them all feeding from Mum yesterday

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Continuing the saga of the family from the garden clearance, all good news, which you might not guess from the photo! The old girl hasn't lost all her marbles - really! this is a picture of what greets us every morning in the hedgehog room lots of dirty. messy hedgehog pens! But it is good news because it means the mum has been out in the night, has eaten biscuits and drunk a lot of water (to make more milk with) and as you can see has done a lovely BIG poo just outside the nest box! I did do a quick check and all 4 babes are alive and were underneath her feeding (I hope)

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Another little hoglet brought in last night, she had been found on Gorey Hill, the only one alive, her siblings had been run over, there was no mother anywhere around either dead or alive. So the kind people brought her to me late last night, she is very well as she was out at night, and has eaten well overnight...just makes me mad, another possibly avoidable accident, but maybe it would have been hard to see such small hoglets in the road in the dark....but not impossible as the rescuer found them....

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Update on the family from the garden clearance: Mum had done a big wee and the box was wet through this morning, so I had to move them all into a clean one (wearing gloves of course!) and the good news is that the babies' eyes are open! I think you can see this (just) from this photo, there are still 4 babes, the 4th one is just about visible under the one at the back!

Had a weird morning, 2 calls before 8am and both were juveniles which had fallen into swimming pools in enclosed gardens! Both seem to be OK now they are dry. Neither will be put back in the same garden where they were found, but will be released nearby in open gardens. So please another reminder if you have a swimming pool or a pond, please put in an escape ramp made of rough wood, stones, bricks, or plastic trellis on a roll, hogs are very good swimmers and climbers they just need to be able to get out!

The third new admission this morning was found in a garden and only weighs 378g and is NOT one of this year's babies, she must be at least one year old...so it's not looking good for her if she is so thin at this time of year in a garden where there is always food and water put out for hedgehogs.

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Update on the little piglet found by her dead brothers and sisters on Gorey Hill, she was very feisty and would not be hand fed, but was not eating that much herself, so I put her with another hoglet who was much bigger, even though probably about the same age, who had been hand reared and had no fear of anything going on here, in fact was still yelling for room service to bring more mealworms! When I put them in together all he did was stand on the little one and self anoint! But all this tough love worked and now the confident one is outside in the pen with other youngsters and the little one is not scared any more and is eating fine for herself, she is back on her own! She is now brave enough to pose for her pic to be taken, unlike last time (see 11th August) when all she would do was stay in a tight ball!

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Got a call a few days ago from a man who had watched a baby hoglet walk into his house! Very sensible pig, he had fly eggs all round his back leg which had a small wound at the back of it. The wound is healing up nicely but as you can see, the leg does not work properly yet, as the hoglet is so small the leg should put itself right. This is why the leg is not retracted properly.

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Update on hand reared babies who are all about the same weight now! Funny how they all catch up with each other. The photo is of Jessica who was the weakest of the Pontac piglets, she was separated from the other 2 because she was not doing well and needed hand feeding. Today she went to the outside pen at 362g to be with her brother and sister. You may be able to see the blue nail varnish on her bottom and back - so I know who is who out there.

The 1st hand reared baby from Archirondel is outside and weighs 388g, the second one from La Commune is 438g and has been ear tagged and the third one which was found in Rue de Craslin in the gutter is 373g and will go outside tomorrow.

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Went to the Animals' Shelter today to collect a mature male hog who had fallen into a sunken area at the base of an oil tank. He was covered in fly eggs and just hatching maggots. It was the window cleaner at the property who took the time and trouble to take him into the shelter. There really are some lovely kind people about! The hog seems to be clean of maggots now, but they were everywhere, in his eyes, mouth all over his arms and legs and tummy and of course up his anus. This is the worrying one, as I cannot tell how far up they may have crawled. I have flushed up the bum as far as I can and will just have to wait and see how he does. The good news is that as you can see from the picture, he has already eaten half a saucer of whiskas! So I am hopeful he will be OK, he is very thin and may have been in the pit for some time, so he is a very lucky pig that the nice window cleaner called at the house today. I phoned the householder's mobile and the ring tone was odd, I mean that it sounded like he was not in Jersey! So I didn't let it ring too long in case he was away on a long-haul holiday, rather than just over in France or the UK! I will try to contact him again in a couple of weeks to ask if he will put in a ramp so that this won't happen again.

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Update on the piglet with the injured back leg I reported on 18th August. He has seen his doctor (Hugh) and had his leg examined, and it is not broken, but the tendon is damaged, must have happened when he got the wound at the back of the leg (which is healing well). We will just have to wait and see if the tendon repairs itself, as you see he still drags his leg so is not releasable like this. But it will be quite some time before he is big enough to release anyway so he may put himself right in that time.

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The hog with the 4 dog tooth holes in his back is coming along fine, he only has one wound left, and it is now a large shallow patch of skin where the spines and dead skin have come away, there is a little blood still but it is only like a bad graze now. The goo on the wound is aloe jelly, not muck from the wound! He still does not roll up though, hope he gets more flexible as it heals.

This is the hog I reported on 28th July, if you compare photos - see how long it has taken and how large a patch of spines and skin have come away, it was just a small but very deep tooth hole at the start which tracked back underneath for a long way!

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Yesterday's new arrival is a weaned but very thin youngster from an almost enclosed garden behind the Old Portelet Inn. He had got himself under the fence from next door where the kind lady (who was away until today) had been feeding him and his Mum until she went away. It is so dry round there, we are unsure how Mum got into the garden where she must have given birth, as she and the baby had been found earlier under some Pampas grass. We think she may have got in over a low wall.

The Baby did well overnight he weighed in yesterday at only 138g which is far too light for his size, he must be at least 6 weeks old, he is all head and no body...this morning he weighed 166g, he had eaten his whiskas as soon as he was put in the hutch - as you can see......

I hope to be able to release him in the garden where he was probably born when he is much bigger, if I am allowed to put some wire netting or some sort of escape ramp over the low wall in case he cannot get in and out the way the Mum can. That would be the ideal solution, a soft release with food and water provided but with the freedom of Portelet Common as well to roam over.

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Update on Quennevais Park babies last seen on this page on 19th August! They are now 28 days old and are eating small biscuits and ground up insects and kitten dry food for themselves. They sometimes nest apart from Mum who is very protective and grumpy which is why I didn't ask her for a photo too!
Their weights range between 127g and 136g.

Last night a kind lady phoned, she had been cycling home at about 8.30pm and heard 2 young hogs squealing at the side of the lane. She went home and phoned me and then very kindly went back and picked them up, they had moved a little way from where she had first seen them. I collected them from her house. They are 2 girls, so it is unusual for them to be yelling for a wee, but one of them does still need help to pass urine, even thought they both have teeth. The more advanced one ate for herself overnight, but the weaker one didn't, but has taken lots of liquidised cat food and rusk today. No photo today, all covered in glop! not ready for the camera yet! Will take a pic once they have been to make-up!!!

Another very thin furry young hog in this afternoon, with fly eggs round her back end. Not looking good.

Just had a call from a lovely lady who has had 2 screaming young hoglets in her garden all afternoon, we couldn't work out why they were yelling when they seemed quite big and not hurt. She then phoned back with the answer! Mum was on the other side of the fence but was too big to get through the hole the youngsters had used, so they have put the babies back with Mum and will put food and water next door and block up the hole in the fence from their side!! Some people are so nice!

Also just had a delivery of a 79g baby who has all her teeth and should be about double this size she is at least 4 weeks old probably older, but is tucking into liquidised cat food at once, so she may be OK. Photos to follow if she makes it!

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Good day today 4 more hogs in! Had to go in both directions this morning! First call to St Ouens where a lady had seen a hog lying flat on a track while she was out on a walk, so she phoned her husband who phoned me...and the amazing thing was that the hog was exactly where he had described, so that proves how sick it is, if it hadn't moved in all that time! So PLEASE put out water in your garden at night for hogs, the ground is just SO dry at the moment, they must be having an impossible time trying to find natural food out there, so any supplementary food you can put out will be most welcome to them. This is the hog in the picture!

Next call to just beyond Five Oaks where the people had seen a large hog out in the day a couple of times, they said her back leg was hurt but she has walked OK here. She has a patch of short spines on the left side of her bum, so maybe she is bruised from a strimmer, no cuts or wounds though. Have to see how she does.