Sunday 26th: It has been a privilege to watch these animals develop from such tiny and helpless creatures to three individuals who have their own personalities and are approaching adulthood. We are approaching the end of the 14th week so they are now 3 months old and all have a healthy weight: the male weighs-in at 818g and the largest female at a whopping 918g! We are extremely happy with the male as he was very poorly when just a few days old and not gaining any weight. It was touch-and-go with him but now he is a very healthy Hedgehog! The only (little) problem with these two is that they keep coming into the kitchen at night and spending as much time as they can in there!
Meanwhile, the other female is becoming a cause of concern; her current weight is 788g, which sounds good, but she has not gained the weight in the last two weeks that the other two have. She is the only one of the three that tends to behave as Hedgehogs do. She is people-shy, which is good, and spends most of her time outside in the enclosed garden. Though there is plenty of dried cat food out there plus whatever insects etc she can get, she is now lagging behind weight-wise. This Hedgehog was the one that was showing the most promise for release, but now we are holding-off.
Indeed, last week was the week that we were due to release them all but releasing them would in our opinion be a death sentence for them. After checking up on various websites and reading the research on releasing into the wild and seeing poor results with tagged hogs...we have decided to over-winter them for hibernation come December and take it from April when they emerge. When they emerge from hibernation next April, they should wake-up as adults and just maybe they will have all the adult instincts that tell us that we can release them to the wild and know that they will have a fighting chance.
Meanwhile, the other female is becoming a cause of concern; her current weight is 788g, which sounds good, but she has not gained the weight in the last two weeks that the other two have. She is the only one of the three that tends to behave as Hedgehogs do. She is people-shy, which is good, and spends most of her time outside in the enclosed garden. Though there is plenty of dried cat food out there plus whatever insects etc she can get, she is now lagging behind weight-wise. This Hedgehog was the one that was showing the most promise for release, but now we are holding-off.
Indeed, last week was the week that we were due to release them all but releasing them would in our opinion be a death sentence for them. After checking up on various websites and reading the research on releasing into the wild and seeing poor results with tagged hogs...we have decided to over-winter them for hibernation come December and take it from April when they emerge. When they emerge from hibernation next April, they should wake-up as adults and just maybe they will have all the adult instincts that tell us that we can release them to the wild and know that they will have a fighting chance.
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