The children and our visiting cousin from American found this little fellow by the compost heap yesterday.

Hedgehog
Excitement turned to sadness as we discovered he was injured. He was dragging one foot behind him and the other looked hurt too. He did eat some food we offered and we put him in a safe place overnight, with food and water.

You can see his leg sticking out behind him
This morning we brought him to our local vet. She told us his leg is broken and he also appears to have further internal injuries around the broken leg. She is not sure he will make it, but is keeping him till tomorrow to see if there is any hope for the poor thing. It was amazing seeing a hedgehog so close, just sad that it was not a happy, healthy one. We don’t know how it got injured. It may have got hit by a car and managed to get itself to the compost heap as it is only a few metres away from our small road.
Hedgehogs will use compost heaps to find food and also for hibernating in. They mainly eat insects including earwigs, beetles, spiders, caterpillars, slugs and earthworms. They hibernate in the winter when these animals are scarce and hard to find. As our winters are relatively mild in Ireland hedgehogs generally hibernate between October and March.
In Ireland, hedgehogs are protected under Appendix III of The Berne Convention and under the Wildlife Act (1976) and Wildlife (Amendment) Act 2000. Hedgehog populations have declined dramatically in Europe, but no research has been carried out on hedgehog populations in Ireland. Use of slug pellets, increased use of chemicals, agricultural intensification and road kills are all thought to contribute to declining numbers. For more information click here.
Hope he will recover still! We usually have at least one hedgehog in our garden, but last year the young died in the summer drought. The road outside here is a killer as well – I am constantly worried about “our” hedgehogs. Every summer we find some skeletons on the road. Such sweeties they are, but full of little itching things…lice. Not fun if the dogs get them.
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I agree it is so lovely to know they are in your garden, they are so sweet:)
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♥
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Well done looking after the hedgehog. Fingers crossed the little chap (or chapess) pulls through xx
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Thank you for taking care of this sweet hedgehog Karina – we’ll keep our fingers crossed he’ll make it 🙂💖 xxx
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Thank you
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Prayers for the sweet little thing!
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He needs them
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Aw, I hope the little guy recovers. Such a sweet wee thing.
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The are very sweet, and great friends of us gardeners too
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Great post – apart from the suffering!
Yes, we need to emphasis the need to protect the wildlife- especially from all the man-made pollution so many spread freely!
I hope there’s good news for the little fellow…
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Not looking good, but we will stay hopeful
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I’m glad that he had someone to look out for him even if it turns out not to be good news, but I hope for the best.
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Unfortunately bad news as he did not make it. We are all sad.
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I’m sorry to hear that.
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Oh, how very sad but you did try and that’s the thing. Hope the profile gets higher & higher for these animals. We can ‘t lose them.
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They are such wonderfully strange yet endearing creatures
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Oh, poor, wee thing! How lucky the hedgehog was to have you all to care for it. It must have been special to see it up close nonetheless. 🙂
-Emma
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It was, especially for the kids to see.
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Great photos! Please check out few pics I took of wildlife from Kruger National Park
@ https://travelrahul.wordpress.com/2019/08/17/kruger-national-park-south-africa/comment-page-1/#comment-37
Please like/follow me for more exciting travel content
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Thank you
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