European Hedgehog Page

This page is still very new, so please forgive the limited information here.

Caring for Wild Hedgehogs

Here are a few safeguards to consider for those lucky enough to have wild hedgehogs visiting in their backyards:

One of the past traditions throughout much of hedgehog loving Europe always used to be putting out a dish of milk or cream for hedgehogs. Unfortunately, this is not particularly good for our prickley little friends, in spite of the fact that they love the taste. Milk or cream can cause all sorts of stomach cramps and takes the place of food, without providing quite the same nutrition.
Rather than milk, try putting out some dry catfood. Hedgehogs, being insectivores, are essentially carnivorous by nature (although I'm sure most people would not equate a fat grub with a steak dinner), and while not perfect, cat, or dog foods are a much better diet for hedgehogs than milk.
Be careful in the fall when burning piles of leaves, or when turning over mulch piles. Hedgehogs love to burrow into these to hibernate, and without care, disaster can strike in the form of a burned, or impaled hedgehog.
If you have a pool and live where hedgehogs come to visit, you might want to dangle a piece of thick rope or add a wooden ramp into your pool, in case a prickley traveller comes charging along chasing a tastey morsel, and ends up in your pool. Hedgehogs can swim just fine, but without some way of actually climbing out that they can find, around the edge of the pool, they will eventually tire and drown.

Siililand Home of Finnish Hedgehogs, maintained by Marcin Dobrucki.

There has been an amazing flurry of hedgehog activity taking place recently in Norway

Nordiska Samfundet Mot Plågsamma Djurförsök - UPPSALA-AVD (The Swedish Society Against Painful Experiments On Animals - BRANCH OF UPPSALA).

Anders and Siw, who run the site above, spend a lot of time caring for sick, injured and orphaned hedgehogs. .

The British Mammal Society maintains this web page on European Hedgehogs.

The Cleveland Hedgehog Preservation Society (CHPS) maintain this excellent web page containing a great set of information on caring for European hedgehogs, as well as on the Society itself.

The Linnean Society of London maintain this web page on hedgehogs as part of their FLORA-for-FAUNA web server.

WildAid (formerly the SWRRC - Staffordshire Wildlife Rescue and Rehabililatation Centre) cares for many sick, injured, and orphaned hedgehogs. This page has some great pictures of a couple of their lucky patients.

For those of you with a humourous bent to your hedgehog interests, here's the story of Hedgehog crisps and it's tie to St. Tiggywinkles.

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