If your hedgehog escapes

What you should do:-

Double and triple check that they are not in their home. They can sneak under liners in weird places and it takes a second look to find them. If they are not there, look in places close to their home. They will often turn up close to their cage, if you do not find them within few minutes of searching .........................

1. Turn up the heat. Chances are that is is colder than 73 degrees F where your hoggie is hiding and you will need to minimuze the chanced of attempted hibernation. They will be more active and move around if it is warmer making it easier to find them. The colder it is, the more likely they will just huddle up and stay put.

2. Shut all doors. If the room your hoggie was in is always closed, you know that they are in the room somewhere. If not, shut all the doors you can and you will have to start to narrow down the process of finding which room he is in.

3. Pick everything up off the floor. Hoggies will frequently hide in fabric like laundry piles, inside bags or even shoes. They also like to hide under appliances where it is dark and warm like fridges, dishwashers, mashing machines, tumble driers etc. Avoid running any appliance until you are sure your hoggie is not underneath or inside them. Be careful if you move any furniture or appliance that you do not crush your hoggie in the process. Reclining chairs, rocking chairs, pull out sofa beds are notorious for injuring pets when they are opened up to look underneath.

4. If you do not find your hedgehog after searching through everything on the ground and you are not sure which room they are in, you can start to leave out strong smelling foods to try to lure them out - we cat food or canned insects will work.

5. Lay down some newspaper on the floor, sprinkle flour on it and put food in the middle of the newspaper. If you stay up, you may hear the paper crinkle and if your hoggies takes the food, you will see the footprints in the floor. Once you have seen evidence of your hoggie in one room, you can focus your search in that room.

6. Look through everything you possible can in that room and make some noise in the process. If you thump on something that your hoggie is in, he might huff and give themselves away.

7. Leave a wheel in the room - they cannot resist a wheel and you may hear them running on the wheel.

When you have found your escapee, make sure to check them all over for any sign of injuries - if he fell from his cage, he could have seriously hurt himself along with the chances of strings or hairs caught around their limbs or getting cold enough to trigger hibernation.

Keep a close eye on them for the next few days just in case he has eaten something bad that may cause digestive issues or they havee a less than obvious internal injury that will need the attention of a vet.

Finally, find out how they escaped so that you can prevent it from happening again. If the door has been left open it is easy to solve but if they got out with the door closed, you will need to go over their home very carefully to find out where they have escaped from.

Remember to be patient and not panic if an escape happens. Whilst it is dangerous for your hoggie to be out without heating, food and water etc some have still managed to live a long time in their owners home - don't give up and be persistent and thorough.

happened to me a few times....with houdini...aka flint.

under the floor boards of my attic for 3 days...
pleased to say i found him, by scattering dried mealies...and caught him...quickly.

Hattie led me a right dance - one step ahead of me all the time and found her in the first place I originally looked!

Hermione who lives with Nick was a bugger - tipped upstairs upside down twice and couldn't find her - put wheels in each bedroom and she was wheeling merrily away at 2 in the morning!!

Easy with the hog room - have a big board over the door so they cannot get out!

haha, i found poppet under my bed at 2am...twice...and she was living in demi's room....so she had a right trotter about....scared me tho...thought i had a rat under my bed.

definitely better with hog room.

My Little Miss Daisy Splat is my little (big!) escape artist!

Once she was found in a completely different room across the landing and under my bed.

Since having my hoggie rescue room, she gets out and puts herself into her playpen! That was until Helen put a stop to it with one of thos little magical white wedges!

She does like to go for a wander!

xoxox

Black Albino from memory!

Yeah! Thats when she was found under my bed after traipsing through two other rooms and a fireplace!

xoxox

I remember Mad Mel - makes me laugh thinking about it!

Hehe, 'put herself in her playpen' made me laugh. x I remember when I put emo's igloo on the bed while I cleaned his viv, and he didn't usually come out when I took it downstairs but was the only one in that day, so thought it would be ok for a few minutes. Carried it back to the viv and thought 'has he suddenly got very light?' He wasn't there. Fortunately, found him under the duvet with his head on the pillow, but so glad he didn't get to the end of the bed and fall off, or get undernieth it. Would have been a nightmare trying to get him from under there.

On one of my tired nights I had left the door open on Sugar's viv. We had the video recording at that time and all she did was sniff the air and went back to bed.

Awwww, bless her. That's so sweet.