Lucky Find

On Thursday evening my neighbour knocked on the kitchen window while I was cooking.  He had been clearing a large clump of ivy and weeds from under one of the windows of his house and almost stood on these:

There was no sign of the mother around, and they didn't appear to be moving so we opted to pick one up and were relieved to find that the were indeed very much alive.  We estimated the hoglets were around two weeks old and had yet to open their eyes.

We thought there were only two in but in fact there were actually four.  We covered them back up and set up a trail camera to see if the mother would return. If there was no sign of her on the trailcam the next morning then we would call the RSPCA to collect them.

Next morning, the mother was indeed there and we left her to it.  my neighbour placed straw over the nest to keep the elements from them since they had been deprived of their cover and shelter.

The mother hedgehog must have felt this was all a little strange and decided to move the young to another location during the darkness of Saturday morning (There was fuzzy footage on the trailcam that confirmed this).  We have an idea where their new home is (underneath some very thick and tall shrubs) but I'll set up the trailcam nearby to see if we can get any interesting footage.