Young hedgehog rearing rate.

I was reading on another hedgehog forum that the survival rate of the young hogs that are taken in by us carers could be determened by how the mother was looked after in the wild. The first 4 hogs I took in were from a female hog who used one of my feeders everynight, they are all surviving. Two more I took in came from a house who also fed the hedgehogs they are still with me. The other 4 I have had came from the vets and people who didnt know they had hedgehogs in there garden and wasn't feeding them, 3 have died and the 4 is still fighting for his life. As anybody else seen this.

I have certainly noticed it, having read many, many peoples messages on the forums. I have only looked after 4 or 5 Hedgehogs, the youngest being about 7 to 8 weeks old, so I can only get my information from research.

I think you could be on to something here. It needs to be looked in to very carefully.

It may well be the food that they were given by their mother. All mammals are given milk at first by their mother, which she 'makes' by eating food, food which is hopefully full of nutrients and vitamins.
When the baby Hedgehogs take their first sip of their mothers milk, the milk should be more thick and full of nutrients and vitamins, but more importantly, it should contain Anti-bodies to help protect them against bacteria, infections, etc. If the milk is low quality, and does not give them these important things, they will have poor protection, and will therefore be weaker. So when you get the Hog, it is a lot weaker because its mothers milk did not give them the vital ingredients for a healthy Hedgehog.
It could be something to do with that.
The bottom line is, if the mother feeds on quality food, like dog and cat meat, she will produce better milk for her litter of Hoglets. If food is scarse, she will produce poor quality milk.

So feeding the Hedgehogs has more than one benefit.

Bethany.

It's very interesting, and makes sense in a way - if parents are strong then the off spring would have a better chance, weak parents and any off spring are already at a disadvantage.

It makes perfect sense to me. But needs to be looked in to more.
We need to do a scattergrapgh, see the correclation, if there is a trend then we might be on to something. The graph could look at the number of deaths of Hedgehogs that have came from places where they are not fed, compared to Hedgehogs that come from places where they are fed. Then we can see how many have died.

We need to first find out how many Hedgehogs have died.

Bethany.

Hmmm, I agree, there is something going on here. But we may never know, just like we don't know why they self annoint. It's all very confusing.