Another sad hedgehog story

[simbo65]

The little hoglet I found in my garden on Saturday and weighing in at 117 grams had to be put to sleep. It seems his leg was badly broken.
Devastated here that yet another of these fantastic little creatures hasn’t made it.
The only solace I can take is that hopefully he/she didn’t suffer too much.

[Hettihog]

Awe! So sorry to hear your sad news😢 Simbo65 but a real blessing that the poor little hog didn’t suffer. x

[Nic]

Hi simbo65

So sad to hear about the little hoglet. You did your best for him and that’s all we can do. But the little darlings really do tear at our heartstrings.

I have been reading elsewhere that Cyclopsina has been missing. Little Igel has been too, but has just returned, so hopefully Cyclopsina might as well. Such a worry when they are such regular visitors and then go missing, but fingers crossed she might still return. I had one here once who was a regular daily visitor and then she went missing – for about a year. I was so amazed to suddenly see her again. I can only assume that someone on her route here started feeding her. But they do seem to like to keep us guessing.

[simbo65]

Hi-
Still no sign of her but trying to stay upbeat.
It hasn’t been a great summer for the hogs and hoglets here.
My friend down the road also has no sightings.
I can only do my best but sadly it isn’t always enough for them.
Penny’s good news story cheered me up though.
Hope all the hogs with you are doing well.
Any little ones?

[Nic]

Hi simbo65

No little ones here, although I did catch sight once of one that looked like a smaller hog disappearing into the undergrowth, who could have been an early hoglet – but not seen again.

You have been doing your best and don’t be too downhearted. This is a time of year when there are often ‘missing’ hogs. Hopefully some will reappear.

I haven’t to my knowledge ever had any hoglets born in my garden, but usually some hoglets eventually ‘appear’ from somewhere. One year I had 12 of them – not all at once. As the first ones got bigger and disappeared, hopefully to hibernate, more smaller ones kept appearing. I suspect others may have given up feeding earlier than I did, so they all made their way here. Some had to be over-wintered in the end and not all of those survived, sadly. But there is quite a high mortality rate among very young hogs and there isn’t always anything we can do about it.

Fingers crossed for some returners.

[Penny]

Hi Simbo65,

Sorry to hear your sad news, any sign of Cyclopsina yet, is there any chance that she could be nursing hoglets?

I try not to identify the hogs that visit our garden now, because so many of them disappear, but some of them, like cyclopsina, you just can’t help but recognise. We have a small male that has been a regular visitor for over two years now named Draco, most of the other males will disappear for months at a time or not return at all, so I shall be very sad if he goes A.W.O.L.

It’s not just the hedgehogs that tug at the heartstrings either, we had a pair of tawny owls living close by which you could hear calling to each other most nights and who successfully reared young last year. I had been monitoring them since last August as part of a BTO survey, then one night in March my son arrived home from work having spotted a dead tawny owl at the side of the road a couple a streets away, we haven’t heard one since…very, very sad. 🙁

Twelve hoglets Nic, that’s good to hear, hopefully it should be a good year for them this year too, they certainly shouldn’t be short of food with all this rain.

[Author]

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