Thanks Nic. Here’s Pegleg’s story:
Last autumn we noticed one of our hedgehogs really struggling to walk, leaning over at every step as she dragged herself to the feeding box. Eventually we saw that her right rear foot was missing, just a jagged stump left. We agonised over what to do. If we find an abandoned hoglet here, we usually take it to the vet for a once-over, and if they think it will survive they take it to a sanctuary nearby. However, I thought it most likely that if I took this hedgehog to the vet they would just put her down. I couldn’t bring myself to dig her out of her nest box in the daytime. In the end I decided to let nature take its course.
Surprisingly, we saw her struggling to the feeding box every night, and slowly getting better. This went on for eight weeks, some time after the others had hibernated. Eventually she stopped coming, and we thought she’d either hibernated or was dead.
So great joy when she reappeared in early April. We can now see that her leg has healed to a neat round stump but she still can’t walk very well. Blotchy circled her on the doormat one night, but she didn’t look pleased and I think she got away. We have put a new feeding box a little closer to her nest box, and she’s using it.
I wonder how she’ll cope with motherhood though?
