Hedgehog off to hospital
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While playing back film footage of my hogs visiting the feeding station I saw
to my horror that one of the hogs was dragging one of its back legs. I knew
I would have to intervene and was able to catch it last night. Fortunately it turned up at 11.00 so I did not have to wait up all night. My father took it to
Oak and Furrows where as luck would have it the vet was due to make a visit.
I have to phone up tomorrow to find out what the vet said. They said apart form its suspected broken foot it was in mint condition. I will have it back
as soon as it is recovered. They said it was a male, I think he may have got injured fighting with the other hogs which happens on a regular basis.I had to catch another one a couple of weeks ago, I could see on the camera one hog was covered in ticks, I tried to remove as many as I could but the
little devil kept curled up in a tight ball. I only managed to get the ticks from its back.Hi Pauline,
Great that you managed to capture the injured hog, hopefully he will be back soon. I know what you mean about the ticks, a couple of ours have a few on their faces, but I know from past experience that trying to get them off when they are curled up into a tight ball is virtually impossible.
one trick to use to get them to uncurl is to stroke the middle of their back in the direction of the spines, quite firmly but not roughly (obviously) and with protective gloves on. their natural reaction is to uncurl slightly, and at that point you can slide your fingers under their chin / tummy and prevent them curling back up. it takes some practice, so dont do this whilst holding them mid air as once uncurled their next reaction is to try and escape, so have a supporting surface underneath just in case!
Thanks for the tip Jan-marie, thankfully there aren’t too many at the moment, but if they start multiplying I will certainly give it a go. Since I purchased my tick removal tools about a year ago, I have only needed to use them once, but they are predicting a bumper year for the damn things.
You make it sound so easy, Jan Marie, but that isn’t always the case. I have seen very experienced hog handlers trying to keep a hog unrolled that didn’t want to be. Some have very strong muscles and can trap your fingers if you aren’t careful. Removing ticks from that particular hog was definitely a two person job, even with two experienced hog handlers. Maybe a difference between hogs who have been overwintered who will have been used to being picked up daily to have their temporary ‘home’ cleaned out and a hog who has always been wild.
The rescue lady I work with showed me the technique and it seems to work quite well most of the time, but can be tricky with resistant hogs, when you are probably better leaving for a while as they just become more tense and anxious. Neither she nor I handle overwintering hogs daily, once they are ‘fixed’ I tend to leave any in my care alone in their own built nests and simply clean out the feeding and toileting areas daily. some I dont actually see for weeks and then only for a weigh in if I know they are taking food regularly.
there are some good clips on youtube Penny for removing hedgehog ticks – its a slick twisting action with those special tools – far safer than tweezers – and most satisfying to rid them of those horrible little parasites (i dont know what the point of such creatures are – other than to cause us grief).
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