Young hedgehogs born late in the season are running out of time to put on enough weight for their winter hibernation and now face starvation.
The mild spring in Ireland saw many hedgehogs come out of hibernation early and consequently have an extra litter of hoglets in late August or September.
A hedgehog needs to reach a weight of about 650g before it can settle in for its winter hibernation. At this stage the vast majority of the animals will have started hibernating but many of these autumn juveniles still weigh less than 200g.
They will not hibernate until they gain weight and are likely to starve as soon as a cold snap makes food scarce.
Concerned members of the public are now bringing large numbers of underweight hedgehogs to rescue centres. “We’ve seen a huge increase in the number of admissions this year,” said Hedgehog Rescue Dublin founder Yvonne McCann.
She said normally the centre in Rush would get about 300 hedgehogs a year but this year will well exceed 600 hedgehog admissions. She added that the situation would be the same for centres across the country.
By this time last year the centre would have stopped admitting hedgehogs but this year it is still getting hoglets that weigh just 100g to 200g, said Ms McCann. In the wild “they will die off, they will all die of starvation”.
She added that as the weather gets colder poisonings will become more of an issue. The problem is that the young hedgehogs become increasingly desperate for food and end up eating toxic slug pellets.
Ms McCann said anyone concerned about the hedgehogs could leave some water and chicken flavoured cat food out in their garden. “That will help them.” People should also use organic slug pellets that do not harm other animals.
She added that anyone who finds a small hedgehog in their garden should carefully put a towel around it and weight it on a scales in their home. If it is underweight then they should bring it to their local wildlife centre.
