After first spotting the little ones in the backyard, I kept an eye on them more out of curiosity than anything else. They ended up curled up asleep under the bamboo leaves for that night.
In the morning the smaller of the two was gone but the larger one was still sleeping. During the morning he/she moved out into the yard for a sunbathed nap. And proceeded to move about the grassy area for more naps.
Today I started to do some research (http://www.britishhedgehogs.org.uk/) and it seems that the one that remains is possibly unwell. They are evidently nocturnal animals and any sighting of them during the day is not normal. This breaks my heart since both David and I have enjoyed watching out for the little guy. After my research I went down to check on him and found him exploring the garden looking for lunch. This was the most energy I'd seen him exert in days and his eyes were looking beady like they are supposed to so I am hopeful. However, I realize that he probably still needs care beyond what we can do for him and so I will most likely call the Hedgehog Preservation for a carer to come help him. I'll be sorry to see him go.
Once David got home we discussed it more and watched Herbie (because that was what David has decided to call him) explore for a while. When explorations went out of the garden and across our driveway and even out into the road of the cul-de-sac we started making those calls for his safety. The Hedgehog Preservation provided a number for a kind lady, Pauline, down the street who does Hedgehog rescue and she had us collect the little guy until she could get here. I went outside with a hand towel and gathered the little one up and put him in a box and we waited for our rescuer. Pauline was so kind and told us that we had a baby on our hands and then we went looking all over the garden for a nest. Pauline assured us that we didn't have anywhere that there could have been a nest and she wondered how they had wandered into our garden. Problem was that Pauline didn't have the experience or equipment to take care of Herbie since he was so young, so we needed to find someone who could give the little guy the care he so needed. This little one needed mom's milk or as close as we could get pronto.
So we climb in the truck and Pauline directed us to the veterinarian that she knew was good with hedgehogs. His Winterbourne office was closed, so we went to his other clinic in Yate. But he wasn't in there either so we called Pauline's husband who provided us with Hedgehog Rescue's phone number and off we went to find her home base in Yate.
Yvonne with Hedgehog rescue was so kind. She had several hedgehogs of various ages that she was caring for and that gave us the opportunity to see a full sized one . . . which was about the size of an American football. Hmm, our Herbie was tiny which means the other one was even smaller. Yvonne looked over Herbie and saw that he did have some fly eggs which she diligently removed with tweezers. Evidently if the fly eggs were left to hatch, the maggots would have eaten poor Herbie alive which would have been just awful. Upon further inspection it was noted that he had a shallow wound in his neck which had eggs and just hatched maggots which Yvonne cleaned out as well.
That being done, Yvonne put some medication on the owie and then used a syringe (no needle) to feed honey to Herbie to help with sugar levels and shock. He liked that!! She then mixed A/D pet food with water and at first he turned up his little nose. She took a syringe (again no needle) to feed him some of that as well. The goal was to get the little guy rehydrated. Last, but not least, before she put him to bed, she gave him some fluids intravenously . . that he didn't like. And then he was tucked into bed for the night, Safe and Warm.
We dropped poor Pauline off at her home so she could salvage what was left of her evening and hopefully her dinner with her family and we headed home having missed the opportunity of making it to practice for the evening but feeling ever so good about having rescued poor Herbie.
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