Rescue, Rehab, Release
No sooner finished one hog with fly strike, and another comes in.
This one was brought to us from Blandford, having been found trapped in plastic. The finder cut the hog free and brought it straight to us.
This poor hogs ears were packed solid with flies eggs, and it has a garrote type wound about its neck that was also covered in eggs.
Bit of a nasty one this.
We had a juvenile male hog dropped off this afternoon, following a call asking if we could take it. We were told that it was in a bad way with a head wound, dehydrated, had flies all over it and smelled.
He had been found yesterday, but not handed in until today. At this time of year, it takes approx 4 hours from flies eggs being laid until the maggots hatch. If we’d had this chap yesterday we could have saved him a lot of pain and discomfort.
Tiny Pikachu trying his first solids, a mix of Esbilac and Hills a/d. His teeth are now starting to appear.
He seemed more interested in the lid (off a small jar) at first, then seemed to realise the meat was there and was tasty 😀 He polished off the whole lot in the end.
This should mean we can go longer between feeds now, which Tracy will be happy about.
It’s nice holding them to feed them, but better when they can feed themselves.
Last night we said a fond but tearful farewell to Colin, the hog we have in our care longer than any other.
He came to us as a juvenile aged approx 4-5 months on the evening of 23rd August 2018, after being trapped between two brick walls below ground level for five days. He appeared to have walked along or climbed over a garden wall and fallen into the 6inch gap behind, trapping him against a garage wall. In that time he had tried frantically to climb out, but at a depth of around 3ft below the garden level this was impossible. The frantic scratching to climb out resulted in him losing all the claws on his front feet and the tip of some of the toes.
We had an emergency entry this afternoon, a hog had been trapped in netting in a garden. The finder spent 1.5 hours cutting it free and then gave us a call for help.
Tracy collected the hog, and phoned me whilst on the way home to get fluids and fly strike cleaning kit out.
The hog is in a bad way, massively dehydrated and has constriction wounds, plus a deep wound all under her neck, which is infected and full of fly strike.
Tracy had a call earlier this evening by a lady who’s little son had been out playing with his friends on the village green and found this tiny bundle of love curled up in the road against the kerbstones. Despite being very young, he knew right away the baby should not have been out on his own, so he picked him up and ran home to his mum.
Well it’s been another busy day with hogs coming in and others going out for release.
This little guy we have named “Parker” was picked up at midnight by a young lad, when he noticed it was covered in blood. It was in the road outside his home so we guessed it may have been hit by a car.
Little Trooper Robbie loving his new fleece snugglepouch (made by Karen, one of our daughter-in-laws) and tiny Sweetpea getting ready for sleep inside hers.
Pouches are a great way to make hedgehogs feel secure and with some hogs such as blind or highly stressed ones, fleece pockets can have a real calming effect on them.