Woman comes to rescue of hedgehogs left ill by bad diet

IF YOU come across a hedgehog moving around in daylight it is probably ill, according a remarkable woman who runs a hedgehog rescue on the outskirts of York.

“They are nocturnal so we shouldn’t be seeing them during the day,” she says. “Of those you do see, the vast majority are sick.”

Unfortunately an increasing number are being found with a variety of illnesses, and the little A&E Emma Farley has established in her garage has had a busy summer.

She has treated 400 over the past seven years despite limited space. This year, though, she has experienced a spike in admissions of baby hedgehogs, known as hoglets, whose mothers have either died of illness or been killed. Last summer she treated half a dozen orphans, but when I spoke to her recently that figure had more than quadrupled.

Around 80 per cent of sick hedgehogs are found to have been weakened by internal parasites that prevent them from getting the full nutritious benefit of their food.

The three most common are lungworm, roundworm and fluke, which are ingested by eating host species like slugs, snails and earthworms.

Hedgehogs should not be touching these. Their staple diet is beetles and caterpillars. So why are they eating them? “Desperation,” sighs Emma.

She believes their natural foods are now less plentiful because of increased spraying of pesticides and weedkillers in farmland and gardens.

As soon as possible after a hedgehog is admitted she obtains a sample of faeces from the animal to put under a microscope and identify the infecting parasites. This is important, she says, because it needs to be treated with the correct wormer, which is usually a very small dose of the medicines which vets prescribe for cattle and sheep.

She feeds most of her patients kitten biscuits, but those in a critical condition get tinned pet food to begin with, which she reinforces with extra energyboosting vitamins and minerals.

The young hoglets are fed a lactose-free formula then gradually weaned onto puppy food. She is ready for another spike in hoglet admissions in November when babies born in September would normally go into hibernation. In previous years the mild winters have stopped this natural process.

“They keep scraping about for dwindling food, pick up parasites from earthworms and get sick,” she says. Emma is not alone in finding that hedgehogs are struggling.

According to the People’s Trust for Endangered Species, there are fewer than a million left in the UK, half the number of 20 years ago.

Hedgehogs are brought to Emma by members of the public after being found sick in gardens or have injuries caused by strimmers, dogs or cars. She is currently spending over £5,000 a year on her rescue centre, helped by donations and selling her own handmade silver jewellery. Emma says her happiest days are when she takes her hedgehogs to wherever they were found and releases them back into the wild.