The day the wild life came to visit Part 2

Last month I wrote about the day the seagull came hopping into our garden.  Well, that same weekend we had another visitor in our conservatory, of the prickly kind.

I came downstairs in the morning to my partner telling me we had mice!  He'd been in the conservatory and Max's craft material was all knocked over and there was wee on the floor!

Urgh, not what I needed to hear at 7am!

Whilst looking around the conservatory, there was indeed a wet floor, but no droppings.  Why were there no droppings?  Are we even sure that was urine?  I'm not doing the smell test on it.

We cleaned up the floor and the craft area and I went on the hunt for mouse droppings!  But what I found snuggled up right next to the massive bag of mealworm was a hedgehog!  He'd decided to crash at ours for the night!

It was 9am by now so no way was he going outside!  I'd seen quite a few posts from animal rescues that if a hog was out during the day that meant they were in trouble, as these are nocturnal creatures.

Now whilst that boy was snug in the corner having a snooze he couldn't stay there, I mean, look at the mess he's making (found the poo!).

The first thing we did was weigh him.  If he was under 600g he was going straight to WADARS, our local animal rescue.

As you can see, our hog was a health 660g, which meant he could go back out to the garden that evening [This was back in October remember].  I put him in a box, with some scrunched up newspaper and hedgehog food and left him in the conservatory.

I popped by midday to make sure he was OK, and the little prickly pickle had climbed out of the box and gone back in the corner of the conservatory!   He may like it there, he may be scared but I need him more secure and safe for the day.  I was worried he'd get behind a cabinet or hurt himself.

He went into a bigger box.

When night fell we took the box out in the garden and gentle tipped it on its side and left him to come out himself.  We put some food a little way out the box for him.

He went out ate the food and got back in his box!

I put more food out but nearer the hedge this time, and that did the trick.  It was like he knew where he was that time and ate the food and scurried off into the night.

We fed the hogs at night, and I think he'd come down looking for his food and we'd forgotten, and as the back door was left open he must have come in looking and got locking in.

I haven't seen hedgehogs for years so I was really pleased when two turned up in summer, and even after an overnight stay indoors this little pickle still came back each night for his dinner.   I'm hoping he's safely hibernating now and comes back to visit next year.

This year was the first time my 7-year-old had seen one 'in real life'!

Isn't nature wonderful!