Help our Hedgehogs

Hedgehogs are becoming an endangered species in Britain, but we have a healthy population in the gardens of Melbourn and Meldreth. Shepreth hedgehog hospital has been releasing some of their rehabilitated hogs in our villages’ approved safe, wildlife friendly gardens, but as hedgehogs roam over a wide area, we need everybody to be looking out for our prickly friends. The easiest thing you can do to help them is to make sure you have one or two CD sized (10cm, 4 inch) gaps in your fence so the Hoglet at Four Weeks Old creatures can forage in your garden. Hedgehogs spend the day sleeping in undergrowth, dense bushes, and under decking and sheds, and they will also use these nests for rearing their young and for hibernation. Please can you therefore be especially careful when tidying your gardens and having bonfires, and just check for hedgehogs before gardening with sharp tools or strimmers. Slug pellets are really bad for the whole food chain, and rat poison should be avoided too. Hedgehogs Hedgehog at Night and birds can easily become entangled in garden netting and rubbish, and can fall into uncovered manholes. One of our hospital patients was called ‘Hydrangea’ and another called ‘Nettie’ for those reasons! Hedgehogs can swim, but will drown if they can’t climb out of a pond; make sure you provide a ramp inside the edge of your pond, or have a slope at one end. If you do disturb or have to move a hedgehog, just put it into an open box or pet carrier filled with scrunched up newspaper, hay, straw or dead leaves in a quiet corner of your garden where it can sleep until night time, then check the next day that Feeding Station & Water Dish it has gone. If a hedgehog is very sick or

injured, please take it to a vet; you should not be asked to pay. If you find a healthy looking hedgehog out during the day, it may be a hungry female with a litter or hoglets nearby. Just put out food and water and leave it alone. You can feed visiting hedgehogs with cat or hedgehog biscuits, but remember that cats will want to eat the biscuits Emerging from feeding station too! You can make a cat-proof feeding station from an upturned box with a small hole cut into one side, or create something using old bricks. A dish of fresh water is really important too, whether or not you provide biscuits. If you have concerns about a hedgehog out during the day you can phone the hedgehog hospital on 07947 361187 from 9.00am to 5.00pm. Please visit the Shepreth hedgehog hospital website at www.swccharity.org to find out more or to support our work. Hilary Marsh

Friendly, Professional, Expert

Visit our lovely private clinic on Melbourn Science Park for all your dental needs including general maintenance, fillings and restorations, braces, implants, tooth-whitening and much more. New patients are most welcome. Call us on 01763261129 or email reception@specialistdentalpartners.co.uk 9 Beech House, Melbourn Science Park, Melbourn, SG8 6HB Free parking outside world-class dentistry, on your doorstep