Micklefield Hedgehogs

10/09/2025

Watch from 1 minute mark. Wrong. Illegal. This is what rescues are up against.

04/09/2025

Do NOT take advice on what to do with a found hedgehog from any kind of AI at all, including Meta, Rufus, Chatgpt, Siri, Alexa, literally any kind of AI. It is all wrong. AI does not distinguish between pet african pygmy hogs and wild hogs. It is not accurate, not correct.
Only ever follow advice from a rescue/rehabber.

11/08/2025

03/06/2025

Not hedgehogs but I know many local people do love their birds...

UPDATE:
All sorted now.
Thank you so much to everyone who commented below and to everyone who has offered help. All your comments have really helped get our post seen. 🐦

We will try again today...

Is anyone available to transport this baby bird from YORK to CASTLEFORD, please?

If it helps we can donate a small amount towards petrol.

We tried to arrange transport and failed so it would be great to be able to get sorted today.

If you’re seeing this, please take a second to leave a quick comment – even just an emoji. Yesterday's post didn’t reach as many people as we hoped, and we really need more visibility to get transport issues sorted.

Your interaction makes a real difference

Thanks everyone

02/06/2025

We have taken in 4 tiny hoglets for Garforth Hedgehogs after their mama died unexpectedly at rescue last night. They are underweight but lively and will need hand rearing for at least a week before they can be weaned.
Cross fingers and paws because they will need it.

01/06/2025

So that you know what a hungry hoglet sounds like...

31/05/2025

First the Good News. I am seeing and getting pics of lovely fat healthy mum hedgehogs in the North end of Micklefield village. MAGGIE was released last night after treatment for a chest infection and she appears to be living in the churchyard!

A really grand job is being done by our feeders and hog champions in Micklefield village and beyond!

Now the Not so Good News. Yesterday I was asked to rescue a healthy mum who had already made a beautiful nest and had just given birth to 4 babies. Three were healthy and one was stillborn.

The garden owner was having the bottom of the garden, where the nest was, strimmed this weekend, even though the garden owner knew all about the mama hedgehog living there.
This would have killed them all.

I sought advice about how the law applies, and it just falls short of protecting them from someone wanting to tidy up their garden. The two wildlife protection acts were written before strimmers were an issue, and they cover traps, shooting etc but not strimming.

Sadly, for her safety, ROSE the hog had to be picked up and brought to us. This is something we always try to avoid. LOUISE and her mum organised everything. The babies travelled separately (which is how we do these things), and came in a big pile of her nest. The hoglets and mama were reunited in the pen.
Well done to LOUISE and her mum for being Hedgehog Champions - you have been amazing and are the reason ROSE is going to stay alive and unharmed.

Our woodland pen was in the process of being taken apart for a full refurb so we had to quickly try to sort it out. It isn't perfect and will need to be sorted out properly next week when the sleepers are delivered, which means she will be disturbed again, but it can't be helped.

The danger in these cases of forced removal is that the mama hog gets stressed and kills or abandons the hoglets. We are hoping that because this mama hog ROSE is an older mum, she will accept the move, but I won't be going anywhere near for a couple of days so as not disturb her further.

The sad thing is that lots of people would LOVE to have a hedgehog nest in their garden. Hoglets following mum out into the garden are the cutest thing. They are not vermin.

25/05/2025

A Hog (MAGGIE) just in from Church Lane was
Out in the day=Not OK
A big hog (not a mama) but with a totally empty tummy and a bit dehydrated, plus a chest infection. Hedgehogs shouldn't be out in the sunshine but might come out at dawn/dusk.

19/05/2025

DROUGHT!!!!!
Many hedgehogs are coming in to rescues with long claws because they can't dig in the hard soil and lawns for bugs. They are coming in dehydrated, near death. The death rate is skyrocketing.
Please put a bowl of water outside your house - front lawn, back garden, next to your door on the pavement, even.
They are so desperately thirsty they are coming out in the day. There is no real rain forecast until the weekend so they just need a little help til then. Thanks to Mark for use of his video from today.

19/01/2025

A sad post from Urchins. Many people find hedgehogs and genuinely think they can look after them because they once looked after a sick something-or-other, or they did it successfully before once (and got lucky). Hedgehogs are incredibly complex animals to rescue/rehab. Some rescues devote their whole lives to learning more so they can be more successful but ultimately they still lose a lot of hogs. There are spaces at all rescues right now so there is no excuse.