24 hours to phone for help,” says Ron. “I just picked her up and went straight to the vets. She not only had a broken leg with a bone sticking out, but the wound was alive with maggots. Why can’t people, when they see a definite injury to an animal, take it straight to the vet’s?”


But it’s not all doom and gloom. Ron has more successes than failures, and a steady stream of tiny spiky orphans


comes and goes through the family home. To date he has cared for around 50 hedgehogs. This year’s arrivals have included four hoglets whose mother was killed by a lawnmower. Weighing less than 70g each when Ron collected them, they’ve quickly put on weight and should be a healthy enough size for release soon, or at least ready for hibernation around November. Each hoglet is weighed on ar- rival, fed by hand from a syringe, kept


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