Hedgehogs

B and I have been fond of hedgehogs for many years. At one point, the fondness extended to having a number of them living in our house, two with the run of our bedroom, and a large tub of giant meal-worms in the kitchen for the nourishment of same. The family started with just one African Pygmy hedgehog from a pet-store. Some weeks later, all of a sudden there were five. The babies were born under an old shirt of B’s (supplied to the mom as bedding so she could get used to his smell). Somewhere we have video footage of them nursing, the four hoglets resting on the mother’s tummy while she lies on her back with one back leg sticking up in the air.

The hedgehog story, like most pet stories, was very sad at the end, and we’ve never gotten any more. African pygmy hedgehogs are harder to find in pet stores these days.

Today we walked over to the Hulme garden center and got our first up-close look at a live English hedgehog. English hogs are brown and lack some of the beady-eyed charm of the Africans, but the one we met was quite sweet. It was sitting in a cardboard box eating earthworms.

I found some hedgehog photos from the webpage of the founder of St. Tiggywinkle's Hospital.