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Home Forums Carers / rescuing a hedgehog Overwintering indoors or in shed? Reply To: Overwintering indoors or in shed?

#28798

Hi Vicky

Unless a hog is sick it definitely doesn’t need to be in your house. Neither do they need heat.
You will get a lot of people who are likely to tell you they need to be kept warm etc but this is not normal for a hog, it’s humans being worried.
Just the fact you are putting them into a hutch in a shed should keep the temperature warm enough to stop them trying to hibernate. They will need daylight of some sort. You’ve not mentioned their weights on here but once over 550gms in captivity I would let them hibernate anyway if they decide to, as you can control the length of time they do so. Hogs in captivity often don’t try anyway.
Definitely keep them together as it’s less stressful for them and monitor continually as they can suddenly go downhill even when you’ve had them for some time.
To be honest I would find your nearest carer and have a chat with them. Unless your vet has done faecal samples etc they cannot just be said to be healthy. Stress of captivity can lead to internal parasites getting out of balance and killing the hog. Your carer will happily let you keep the hogs, but should be able to help with all questions.
Regarding the club foot, if it’s a back one and not impeding the hogs normal activities then I wouldn’t worry. If it’s a front limb then it may be a problem as they need to be able to dig for food

Hedgehog