caitriona.net : a photoblog by caitriona butler

1. hedgehog

we christmas-holidayed in france with my parents last week and while driving home one afternoon, just around the corner from the house, we spotted a hedgehog pootling along the middle of the street. in broad daylight (i thought they were nocturnal). in mid winter (i thought they were hibernators).

2. cardboard box

we couldn't stop (there was a very cranky ruadhán in the back of the car due to go down for a nap) but i returned about 15 minutes later - armed with a cardboard box - to find the hedgehog still snuffling around the same place. i quickly realised i'd never manage to coax him into the box without some sort of lure (and there is no way i was going to touch him) so i placed the box in front of him on the street and dashed home for some 'danny the champion of the world' inspired raisins (if it works on pheasants, surely it could work on hedgehogs).

3. box, hedgehog. hedgehog, box

returning with a handful of raisins, i was disappointed but not really surprised to find an absence of hedgehog. i assumed he'd meandered off until i spotted him ensconsed in the bottom of the cardboard box. he'd gone in of his own accord (looking for somewhere dark perhaps?) - no raisins necessary - though i tossed a few in after him just incase. i gingerly picked up the box and carried it (at full arm's length) up the street to the parents' garden.

and that was that. hedgehog abduction success!

it felt like a fortuitous coincidence given that the parents' garden has an excess of snails and we had joked in the past about getting a pet hedgehog. but we have since discovered that they don't really eat that many snails, preferring beetles and caterpillars. we've also discovered that it's not a great idea to keep him permanently in an enclosed garden where he won't be able to gad-about and mate and partake in hedgehog social events.

after a false start of bread and milk (**do not give hedgehogs bread and milk**. they cannot digest the bread and cows milk gives hedgehogs very bad diarrhoea. many hedgehogs die because of this wrong diet) we consulted the internet and provided him with water and watched him snuffle in laps around the garden searching out beetles and insects.

the french for hedgehog is hérisson and with his fondness for beetles the name georges hérisson was an obvious choice.

we're assuming he was having a hibernation snack-break because the next day he was in a solid sleep (we did poke him to make sure he wasn't dead). so we went back to the internet for 'hedgehog box building' information and fashioned him somewhere to sleep out the season. (i don't know how hedgehog-abductees managed without this availability of information in pre-internet days).

assuming he survives, the plan is to eventually release him to the wild. though hopefully after he's nibbled on a snail or two.