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By mid-September we normally expect to be much quieter on the patient front here at Vale. This year is not going to plan as we are still busy & I haven’t had the time I would like to spend updating my blog, which is why I haven’t written on it for ages.
I have been busy, not only with the animals, but also getting our latest Newsletter out, & organising our wildlife course which is due to start at the beginning of October.
We have finished preparing our temporary lecture room (it is so frustrating that we were granted planning permission for our fantastic Education & Training Centre 18 months ago but we are still no nearer to raising the £400,000 needed to actually build it).
At the time of writing this we still have places available for the first course which will run for 3 consecutive Sundays, starting on 05 October. Anyone interested please email me at caroline@vwr.org.uk for a booking form & itinerary.
We are rearing a large number of baby hedgehogs at the moment, in fact our Brooder Room is filled with these & baby grey squirrels, but this is what we expect every year in September &.JPG)
October. Hedgehogs often have a litter of young in the late summer/early autumn & these babies struggle to reach a suitable weight to survive the winter. Without adequate fat reserves they will die in the colder weather which is the reason that young hedgehogs are often seen out & about during the day (hedgehogs are nocturnal & so it usually indicates a problem if they are out in daylight hours), desperately searching for the food needed to build them up for the winter.
Sometimes it is a case of just feeding them up until they reach around 600gms when they can then be released back out into the wild, but often they need a course of antibiotics or they need worming as hedgehogs are so prone to various infections & also to internal parasites.
Most of the grey squirrels we rear at this time of year will remain with us over the winter as they won’t have a stored food supply to keep them going. They will be released next spring.
I have been busy, not only with the animals, but also getting our latest Newsletter out, & organising our wildlife course which is due to start at the beginning of October.
We have finished preparing our temporary lecture room (it is so frustrating that we were granted planning permission for our fantastic Education & Training Centre 18 months ago but we are still no nearer to raising the £400,000 needed to actually build it).
At the time of writing this we still have places available for the first course which will run for 3 consecutive Sundays, starting on 05 October. Anyone interested please email me at caroline@vwr.org.uk for a booking form & itinerary.
We are rearing a large number of baby hedgehogs at the moment, in fact our Brooder Room is filled with these & baby grey squirrels, but this is what we expect every year in September &
.JPG)
October. Hedgehogs often have a litter of young in the late summer/early autumn & these babies struggle to reach a suitable weight to survive the winter. Without adequate fat reserves they will die in the colder weather which is the reason that young hedgehogs are often seen out & about during the day (hedgehogs are nocturnal & so it usually indicates a problem if they are out in daylight hours), desperately searching for the food needed to build them up for the winter.Sometimes it is a case of just feeding them up until they reach around 600gms when they can then be released back out into the wild, but often they need a course of antibiotics or they need worming as hedgehogs are so prone to various infections & also to internal parasites.
Most of the grey squirrels we rear at this time of year will remain with us over the winter as they won’t have a stored food supply to keep them going. They will be released next spring.
