Hi Nic,
What a lovely surprise finding the little one in the feed box, I hope you got a photo. We had a bit of rain last night and the gastropods were out in force, including the small black slugs which the hogs love, but they completely ignored them, they just don’t seem hungry.
I’m not quite sure how I came across the website and it took me a while to find it again, but it was a piece by Twycross zoo on marking hedgehogs and makes for some grim reading. It even suggests anaesthetising the hedgehogs in order to clip their spines and putting tags in their ears! I would put the link on here, but I don’t want anyone to get any ideas, I wonder what the BHPS would make of it? Also, whilst I was trying to find it again, I came across an interesting video on Youtube. A pygmy hedgehog had had hoglets and the owner had marked them all with paint in order to identify them including the mother. The mother started licking at it frantically and self anointing. Some of it would have been ingested, so it just goes to show what harm marking them with toxic substances can potentially do!
