Like many people I didn’t have many encounters with hedgehogs and sadly when I did come across them they had been the victim of our increasingly busy But then things started to change, one night I was awoken to the sound of rustling paper a hedgehog was eating its way through a packet of digestive biscuits on the bedroom floor. The hedgehog had come through a cat flap and up a flight of stairs for this midnight feast! A year later I was walking past my neighbours’ garage door and heard scratching coming from the garage, my neighbour was away but on opening the garage I found a hedgehog that had been in there for at least 5 days. A friend who was an experienced wildlife carer gave me the following advice- pick it up, weigh it, give it food and water, provide a box and put it in a pen in the garage. OK but I had never picked up a hog before, did they bite? How was I going to avoid the prickles? And how do you weigh a hedgehog ? Another phone call to my friend ! This was my first experience of caring for a hedgehog and after caring for it for three days I released a healthy hog into my garden. In December 2006 I had my first hedgehog in over winter, my neice named her Muffin and she lived in the utility room all winter. She weighed 300 grams on the 21st December and wouldn’t have survived the winter as she was too small to hibernate. (650 grams is considered to be the ideal weight to survive hibernation). She gained weight and was successfully released where she was found in the spring of 2007. I read a lot about hedgehogs during the winter and discovered how quickly they were diminishing in numbers and how very little effort was needed to support them in the wild. Prickles Hedgehog Rescue had begun ! Jules Bishop -- Founder.