I’ve rescued two small hedgehogs (one 356g and the other 385g), my local hedgehog hospital was also full, had double the amount of hedgehogs she should have, but she took the first one in, did a poo sample, and it had internal parasites, the second one, I’m still looking after her – she is now close to 450g, and might be already there (will weigh her tonight), eating very well and settled down, so hospital said to release her if her poo sample comes back clean – turns out she’s got lungworm.
So the advice from the hospital was to weigh them each night at same time, to check if weight goes down, and also it’s important to do a poo sample, if they can’t do this, a vet might do it.
So just in case it has got parasites, make sure you look after your own health first – surgical gloves are a God send, I’ve got a big box of 100, a packet of just 10 is useless. And also, even with gloves on, I try not to touch the poo, I use puppy mats, cut them in half so you can slide one half out without disturbing the hedgehog, the hedgehog I’ve got now (with lungworm) (named Sweetpea), she poos on one side, so when she’s at the other side of the cage, I can remove the puppy mat, and then if there is mess on the other side, again wait til she moves to the side that’s clean and move it out and replace. She seems to appreciate when I do give her fresh puppy mats, I have a little box within the cage with straw, where she sleeps and she never soils in there – so even though hedgehogs aren’t that clean, they don’t like to have poo everywhere.
So as soon as they have pooed, clean it up, sometimes, if there isn’t much and she’s fast asleep, I’ll leave it until evening when she’s up and about – but I set my alarm clock for sunrise, and clean the cage out, that’s what the hospital’s do as well. They clean out in the mornings, probably at sunrise or close to.
With the puppy mats, it’s easier to avoid touching the poo, because you can just roll them up and put them in a poop bag and put them straight in the wheeley bin, then bin gloves and wash hands thoroughly.
Seperate dish cloth (of course) but also seperate tea towel, and keep their tea towel well away from your tea towel, and disinfect kitchen surfaces, every time you wash their bowls out.
Treat it is if you worked in the NHS basically.
You’re probably doing this already, but just letting you know, that unless you do a poo sample, you don’t know what they are riddled with, and first priority is ourselves, making sure we don’t get infected. After all, if we get ill, who would look after the hedgehogs?
