Ticks on our visitor
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Hi
We have had a regular, rather little, hog this spring (probably one of last season’s babies), who we’ve nicknamed Titchy! However, Titchy arrived early for supper this evening and I’ve seen two clear ticks on it’s face. What’s the best course of action for this? We have a wildlife friendly vet near us – would it be best to catch it and take it tomorrow? Would it be ok kept in a cat basket in the garage overnight? Not sure what to do for the best!
Thanks in advance!Hi.
We have had various situations and advice on the horrid ticks over the past year.
Most importantly if you ever need to catch any hedgehog make sure you wear sturdy gloves and you have no exposed skin. You don’t want ticks attaching to you. The advice we have been given in the past is a few ticks aren’t harmful and will eventually drop off. Too many ticks can cause problems making the hedgehog anaemic.
We took one hedgehog to the vet and they removed 14. If it is a really bad case the hedgehog has to be anaethesised. My other half has learnt how to do it and we did remove a lot of tics from a big hog last year. He didn’t come back much after that.
My instinct would be to leave it I you can only see a couple of ticks.
If he still feeds and gets fresh water he will hopefully get bigger and stronger. Please dont feed meal worms or seeds. These are not good for hedgehogs.
Keep us posted with how titchy does.Thank you! Titchy spends at least an hour in the feeding station each evening (choice of a little wet chicken cat food and Spikes hedgehog biscuits!), and came out before to have a drink too. So at least I know it’s fed and hydrated! I had another quick peep a little while ago, and counted at least 6 or 7 ticks – they seem quite large, probably because the hoggie is quite small! I’ll check again tomorrow evening if/when titchy arrives and if no change I’ll ring BHPS re any carers in the area.
That is a good idea the local carers are very good. Usually if the tics are quite big they should fall off. Do you know where titchy is sleeping?
The problem we have at the moment is probably ticks in the hedgehog house. We would like to clean it but it’s resident since October just won’t move out!
Please keep us posted.
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