Snuffle Lodge Hedgehog Rescue

Fred must be short for Winifred (oops - wrong gender identification - must have been the reading glasses on), and she is currently on antibiotics for her noisy breathing, which we suspect is a legacy of previous parasite infestations. We're glad to say that everything is now working as it should be, toilet-wise, and no sign of any current parasite burden, thankfully. She will stay until we are satisfied the noisy breathing has subsided.

Soul-destroying : cute Little Bob who came to us yesterday from Oak House has passed away. He had a significant burden of crenosoma lungworm but it was too little too late in terms of treatment unfortunately.

We've had to split the Bulwell triplets as the girls have been hogging all the food, leaving Jon behind in the weight stakes. He now has returned to the nursery cage and has a whole dish of food to himself - he's around 110g, Paula is 123g and Carol a stonking 160g. Paula and Carol are inseparable so are being kept together for now, but if the gap gets much wider between these two, they also will have to be split.

Blimey that was a good result - Jon has emptied his own saucer of food already !

It's the usual end of weekend exodus tonight with Froch, Jay and Holly & Jack all hopefully returning to their finders tonight for release back to the wild.

Froch has returned home to Newthorpe for a release tonight. Hard to believe that of the triplets, she was the weakest and very nearly gave up on admission. She's now a grumpy, hissy little girl and ready for a life on the wild - she may even bump into big brother MiniMan who is still visiting the finder's garden along with his new pal...

The next hog to be plonked onto the pre-release conveyer belt will be Brick, the last of the three Newthorpe triplets. Then we'll have a slight pause, as Sandy (very slow developer), Hector (still a touch of ringworm on his nose) and Winifred (still on meds) need a little longer. Aside from that Tracy (injured back leg), Carol/Paula/Jon (about 4 weeks away from a potential pre-release) and Hansel/Gretel (about 6-7 weeks away) have some distance left to run before they're anywhere near being ready.

Holly and Jack have returned to Watnall with their finder. These were our first hoglets for 2013, and they've left us weighing 577g and 558g, a vast improvement on the 70g and 60g they came in at 6 weeks ago ! A very rewarding experience. Thanks to Stuart for the kind donation

And Jay is free to leave tonight with his finder's blessing, as she was unable to collect. He has totally stunned us with his release weight - a staggering 816g. He had to go tonight as he was starting to get stressed, but if he stays around the finder may have a second bite of the cherry tomorrow night. Jay came to us on the same day as Holly and Jack as a 122g hoglet found collapsed in the day.

That's Brick out into pre-release then !

Our vets have confirmed Tracy has a broken leg - they are keeping her in overnight and will amputate tomorrow. She already has a potential enclosed garden set up, but we're some distance off planning that far ahead at the moment. Poor little Tracy also has an ear infection.

Our vets also operate a 'drop one hog off, get one free' offer at present, so a Snuffle Lodge welcome to Dusty, who was rescued by two employees from the City Council's waste disposal unit at Eastcroft - the little fella may also have a sibling which they are seeking high and low for.

A plea to anyone who has brought hogs to us - it's always helpful to have feedback, positive and negative, about the service we offer - please do take the time to comment at Help Wildlife

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Baby update : after a nerve-shredding first 7 days, we're pleased to say that Hansel and Gretel are both doing well and are greedily tucking into 2ml of puppy milk formula at every feed (never tire of hearing that contented suckling noise hoglets make). We use fennel tea rather than water to reduce the potential for bloat, and with their increased food intake we're starting to finally see some reasonable weight gains. The fur on their faces is now a lot more prominent, and they are crawling (no, make that falling over a lot) all over their little home. We'll try to get a picture up soon so you can compare them from last week.

Sad news - Tracy-hog had to be put to sleep yesterday. She was the hog with the suspected broken leg. The plan had been to amputate and release her to an enclosed garden. However, a further check revealed her supposed 'good' leg was actually probably worse than the broken one, despite her movement seeming to be okay. Clearly our vets will not consider amputation if the other back leg won't be able to support walking, so the sad decision had to be taken to euthanase. We delayed the news as we always like to notify our finders first.

As much as I'd love to take some lovely photos of the twins, you try telling them to sit still. They're too fidgetty by far... Anyway, their whiskers are coming through, their faces are now darker, their legs are starting to go darker too, but they still have lovely pink bellies. Their spines are still predominantly white. They're both in the 30s, weight wise - hard to believe they're still only about 10 days old. Saw the first attempt at a scratch with the back leg today - naturally the little fella fell over.... Still waiting on first 'curl up into a ball' - shouldn't be long, I reckon by the weekend.

Sandy is very close to being put into pre-release - he's been a real battle to work with, not helped by the fact he is our token 'grumpy hog' for the year, who hisses and bounces every time we go near - totally wild, and great to see. He should go far !

Meanwhile, the treadmill of two-hourly feeds to the Kimberley twins goes on unabated...As predicted we had our first 'curl into a ball' today !

Despite being free to roam wild since Monday, Jay is still using his house each night : a true 'soft release' !

Despite scrupulous poo-testing, we have found no evidence of a worm burden in Winifred. She has been on anti-biotics for a week, but the rattle she has is still present, strengthening our view she has permanent scarring on the lungs from a previous infestation. She's poo-ing regularly (unlike when she came in), is very active, oh and she only has one eye (not mentioned that before). We see no reason to keep her indoors, so she is now in a pre-release pen for further monitoring. We've not heard one single cough out of her, and she has put on weight.

Dusty gave us a fright early in the week, but we're pleased to report she's pulled through whatever malaise she had, and is now putting weight on again. Again, much poo-sampling and testing has revealed nothing. As she's only in the 150s, weight-wise, she will stay indoors for a while yet.

All the Bulwell triplets are now fully weaned, although Paula was a battle to get off puppy milk formula. She's also a squeaker - occasionally you get a hog who shouts at you when you enter the room. She will soon grow out of it. We are contemplating moving her and Carol (who is over 200g now) into a larger cage, and perhaps even reuniting them with Jon, who is keeping pace with Paula's weight. Or we may isolate Carol, as she's bigger, and put Jon and Paula in together. Problem is Paula and Carol are practically joined at the hip and seem to rub along well. Decisions decisions...

The teeny tinies' eyes have now just about opened, bang on cue - this usually happens at 2 weeks of age. Now they can see what ugly man-ape is feeding them here at the Lodge... poor little mites

Devastatingly bad news from Tuesday, which we have held back until we had spoken with the finder. Sadly, the two little teeny tinies, Hansel and Gretel, both died unexpectedly on Tuesday.

We'd obviously become very attached to them, and they always came out to greet us when it was feeding time. It was a real shock when the first one died overnight for no obvious reason, and then the second one died that evening.

We have no way of knowing what had gone on in the first two days of their life - if they didn't get enough colostrum from mum, it is possible they just didn't have the right antibodies to fight everything, despite us loading them up with extra vitamins alongside the puppy milk formula.

Sometimes it makes no difference what you do, their genetic make up can just determine it isn't meant to be. 1 out of every 5 hoglets born don't make it, sadly, so we were double unlucky here.

It doesn't make it any easier, and thoughts cross your mind 'maybe we should give up'. However, 24 hours of grieving later, and we remember why we started Snuffle Lodge in the first place, and this can only make us stronger and doubly determined to continue our work.

Reflecting on our work since 2008, when the first hog was rescued, we have given just over 100 hedgehogs a second chance in the wild, and it's that which keeps us going. The good days outweigh the bad, always.

Two new arrivals, both being found collapsed during the day. Billie hails from Hucknall but looks to be relatively unscathed. She has been warmed up and is now sleeping soundly. With any luck and a worm-free sample she may be able to return tomorrow. More worrying is little Lola from Ruddington who is very hypothermic. She's just starting to warm up now on a heatpad and has just taken some liquids. She's also stopped the trademark hypothermic wobbles, so hopefully she's been caught in time.

Carol will be split from Jon and Paula today as she is a staggering 80g heavier than them (she's around 280, t'others 200) - it's obvious who's been eating all the pies. We quite often have to separate for the good of the litter - even though there's no animosity between the three of them, we need to make sure the smaller ones get their fair share of grub. At this rate, Carol may make it outside a lot quicker than her siblings.

It's taken him ages, but we're pleased to say the grumpiest hog we have had for a while, Sandy, has made it into pre-release. Mind you, his attitude seems to have passed to little Dusty who is an equally feisty little juvenile. Sandy made sure he prickled us hard as we carried him outside - ouch....

Lola has a significant burden of capillaria (roundworm) so will be with us for at least three weeks, whilst Billie has a double-whammy of capillaria AND crenosoma (lungworm) and likewise will be with us for three weeks or so. Both are absolutely overloaded with capillaria eggs, which is a trend a lot of hoggy-rescues are seeing this time of year, due to the dry conditions (meaning hogs turn to their least favourite food, slugs, which host lungworm).

Billie remains alert and is on a double whammy of medicine, so his appetite is still a little sporadic at present - we're hoping he will be tempted by the allure of puppy food as well, to help pack on the calories.

Lola is doing really well and is finally tucking into some puppy food, a sure sign the drugs are working, and her appetite is slowly returning.

It's odd that out of the two hogs which came in on Saturday, it was Billie that passed away. If we're honest, we felt that Lola was the worse off of the two and it was really touch and go whether she'd make it through her first night. Lola you may recall was the hypothermic hog, but she is incredible now - packing on the weight, causing total chaos in her cage, building a lovely nest for herself, and clearly responding well to worming treatment. This is why I wish hogs could talk....they could tell us what's ailing them and this sort of peculiarity would not exist !

Sad to report Billie passed away last night out of the blue. She was in a compromised state when she came to us, with a heavy burden of endo-parasites. She'd been found collapsed out during the day. Despite three days of wormers and anti-biotics, it was too little too late. Very sad, as she was a lovely little hog and even early yesterday evening during cage cleaning she was alert and nosing around the hogspital with no indication she was in trouble. We had to keep encouraging her to return to her heatpad, but it seems she knew something we didn't - last night she crawled off it, out of her bedding and laid down on the floor of the cage and just passed away gently.

174g juvey just picked up by us out during the day
Now tucking into some grub.

Injured hedgehog brought to us - open fracture, infected, crawling with maggots, had been left for 24 hours (not by the finder, who as soon as they were told about it brought it to us) - finder directed to Vets Now clinic in Dunkirk, who confirmed no cost to euthanase. Sad, but at least will be out of its misery.

The planned releases tonight of Sandy and Winifred have had to be delayed due to the fearsome windy and wet conditions which are brewing here.

New admission, juvenile female Holly rescued by a superhero from the clutches of evil children from the Crabtree Farm estate in Bulwell who were playing 'catch' with her. Very cold and shocked, fingers crossed for this cruelty case.