That's great. Thanks very much for that introduction, Paul, and thank you all very much for joining us on a Saturday evening, to talk about hedgehogs. So, we're going to be talking about the common conditions of European hedgehogs.
Just to give you an idea, we're basically going to be looking at, sort of, I know Liz has already gone through a lot of the principles and decision making when it comes to wildlife, but how they apply to hedgehogs. I want you to think about the sort of clinical techniques that we're commonly using with European hedgehogs. And more than anything, just to be familiar with some of the common presenting conditions that we're going to see in this species and, and how to approach a treatment plan.
And also to understand the risks associated with contact with hedgehogs as well. So we'll touch a little bit on zoonotic disease and some of the risks associated as well. So, just a bit of an overview of the species.
The European hedgehog, is, as the name suggests, the European species, and it's distributed really wide, widely throughout Europe. It's a really popular iconic species that's really frequently brought into vet practises and is, certainly the most frequently admitted mammal when it comes to British wildlife. Now, they are crepuscular, which means most active at dawn and dusk, or some, some of them are more nocturnal, which means that we shouldn't really be seeing them out during the day.
They're insectivorous. They're normally solitary in the wild except for breeding season, so they don't tend to, come across other, other hedgehogs too frequently. And they're really active.
They can travel sort of 2 to 3 miles at night. So we need to sort of be thinking about that when it comes to considering rehabilitation options. The badger is their primary, primary natural predator.
As I'm sure you all know, they are one of the species that hibernate. They typically hibernate November to March. And we'll talk a little bit more about hibernation.
Their breeding season is April to September. And unfortunately, their life expectancy in the wild is actually not that long. So we're looking at about 2 to 3 years in the wild, although they have been known to live much longer, up to about 10 years in captivity.
And as vets, we sort of deal with the, the veterinary and medical and surgical side of, treatment of these animals. But then often the majority of the care is going to be through rehabilitators. And actually, because hedgehogs are so popular and so iconic, there's a number of species-specific rehabilitators.
So, you know, people that just will, take in hedgehogs for rehabilitation. So we have got a few more options with hedgehogs than with some of the other species that we're seeing. So, just thinking about admission, it's really important to think about the time of year, where a hedgehog's been found, and the weather at that particular time, as that may have some impact on why the animal's been admitted, and actually, on the prognosis and sort of the, the approach to this animal.
Also thinking about the time of day, and we'll talk a bit more about that shortly. Now, often with wild animals, we don't have any history. So, you know, we have to make the best of what we've got.
But it's always worth asking whoever's brought an animal in if they have got any details about what's happened to an animal prior to it being admitted. I'm sure Liz mentioned this, but it's, it's worth thinking about signing over animals into either sort of the vet's care or into a practises care, just to give you a little bit more decision-making responsibility and power when it comes to it. Legally, wildlife can't be owned.
It's a very grey area, but it's certainly worth thinking about getting finders to sign, animals over just so that we can make more decisions on them. So, the hands-off examination is the first part, of the examination of any animal, but with wild animals, it's really important that we stand back and we assess what's happening with that animal and we get as much information as we can from them before we actually start to do a full clinical examination. The first question you want to ask yourself is what species is it?
So you may think that a hedgehog's one of the most easy to identify species of all of our British wildlife, and you would be correct, however, they're commonly mistaken for the African pygmy hedgehog, which is an increasingly popular pet. Now, at first glance, they look very different. So this is an African pygmy hedgehog.
It's paler, it's smaller in size. And they do look quite distinct. However, there are some, you know, it does start to get a little bit grayer when you get lucyistic or albino hedgehogs.
So this is an albino European hedgehog. So it's much larger than an African pygmy hedgehog. You can see it's got red eyes, so you can see that it's, it's missing its pigment.
What about this one? So, this is a smaller hedgehog. It's got dark eyes.
Could it be a young, lucistic wild hedgehog, or could it be an African pygmy hedgehog? And it can actually get more difficult to tell as these sort of lines start to blur. One good way to tell is actually to count the number of toes on their back feet.
So this is just a little comparison for you. So, on the right there, the brown foot, that is a wild European hedgehog, and that's got 5 toes on his back feet. On the left, you've got the paler African pygmy hedgehog with four toes.
And that's one sort of really useful way to try and differentiate between the two species. The African pygmy hedgehog is also sometimes known as the four-toed or four-clawed hedgehog. So that can be quite handy.
So once you know what species you're dealing with, you know whether you're dealing with an animal that needs to be, you know, found a home and, and rehomed as a pet, or whether you're looking at rehabilitation and eventual release for a wild hedgehog. You want to do a visual examination and sort of try and pick up on any, any obvious abnormalities that you may be faced with. And do try and allow the animal to acclimatise, you know, perhaps while you're taking a history or trying to speak to the finder, just watch, watch the hedgehog, you know, let it wander around on the floor, see if there's any obvious, you know, abnormalities in gait or stances.
Now, a lot of hedgehogs, when faced with humans, will just curl up into a defensive ball, and it can be quite difficult to get any more out of them at that point. But certainly observing them can give you a lot more information. If somebody has been sort of trying to look after a hedgehog for a period of time, and they bring them in in a box that they've been in, then actually having a look at the environment that they're in.
Looking for any signs of bleeding, any parasites, having a look at faeces and looking at the colour and consistency, and any sort of obvious parasites that you can see, looking at the faeces can be very useful. You can assess the general demeanour of an animal, and as I said, you know, the gait, is it, is, is it displaying any obvious lameness or any neurological symptoms. Also have a look at the spine.
So, you often can't see very much of a hedgehog's skin. To look for any skin conditions. But you may see obvious parasites, you may see spine loss, you may see burnt spines.
So it's really worth having a good look. Now, vocalisations, generally, hedgehogs are, you know, absolutely silent. They may snuffle and make sort of a snuffly noise, which can be easily confused with respiratory abnormalities, but they shouldn't make any vocalisations at all.
They only do this if they're sort of really in a lot of pain. So you can get quite a lot of information from that hands-off distance examination. So, how do we get some more information?
Well, we need to try and uncurl them. And actually, some hedgehogs can be very stubborn. You find with the younger hedgehogs, they're a little bit more easy, and often they, you know, they won't even curl up at all.
But certainly, when you get a hedgehog that really doesn't want to uncurl, you can feel like there's, there's very little you can do. So before we do anything, always wear gloves. There's a number of zoonotic diseases that these guys can carry, so we want to make sure we're protecting ourselves and also protecting them from anything that we may have.
My favourite technique is to basically hold the hedgehog in a ball in cupped hands, usually on a towel, and gently bounce it. And by bounce, actually what you're doing is you're sort of throwing it just a couple of inches into the air and then catching it. And the aim is that the hedgehog, as it thinks it's falling, puts its legs out.
And the aim is that you catch it and you catch its back legs, and you wheelbarrow it just like that, just as it's, it's landing. So that's the aim. And then once you can wheelbarrow it out, you can have a look at its ventrum, you can sex it, you can have a look for any signs of fly strike, any wounds, any injuries.
You can have a good look at its face, look for any signs of discharge, and get a lot more information just by having hold of those back legs. Alternatively, you can stroke them, so cranially to cordially. I normally use, either a pen that I can then disinfect, or something disposable, just to sort of quite roughly stroke them.
So, in the wild, when one hedgehog comes across another, remember they're solitary, that's a technique that they will use. They'll sort of, sort of bump up against each other to try and get them out of the way. And that can be quite effective sometimes.
If you've got the time and the patience, you can just pop them down on the floor and watch and wait, and eventually, curiosity will get the better of them, and they will normally uncurl. Some people talk about putting their feet in a sort of shallow, box of water. It's not something I ever do.
It's not something I ever need to do, and they don't seem to like it very much. So it's not something I would recommend. What I would do is sometimes use a transparent box, because actually, sometimes you can then look through that and just get a bit more information.
The problem with some hedgehogs is they'll uncurl, and as soon as you touch them and try and, you know, uncurl them more fully, they'll curl back up into a tight ball. So it can be very challenging. So once we've managed to get them, uncurled, then we can think a bit about what's normal and what's not normal.
And the first thing actually we want to think about is normal behaviour. And this is going to come in a little bit in your history, so. Are they, out during the day, because that's really abnormal.
If hedgehogs are found out during the day, we need to be concerned. Because they are crepuscular. If you've got hedgehogs in captivity and you're caring for them, do be aware that, you know, they do exhibit nocturnal behaviour, and they eat at night.
So don't be alarmed if they're not eating throughout the day, like our typical domestic pets would. A normal hedgehog will remain curl will remain curled up on exam, except, as I said, for the juveniles who often don't curl at all. And when they do uncurl, they'll often run or walk away from you.
They shouldn't really be coming up to you too much again, except for the juveniles, which are a little bit, less inhibited by us. They shouldn't be circling. They should curl as soon as you touch them.
And they shouldn't wobble or tremble. So, you may have heard of wobbly hedgehog syndrome. This is a progressive degenerative disease that we see really commonly in African pygmy hedgehogs.
It's got a genetic component, and about 10% of African pygmy hedgehogs are affected, but it doesn't affect our European wild hedgehogs. So if we see them trembling or wobbling, that's likely a sign of disease or hyperglycemia or general weakness. And then just another weird and wonderful thing to, to point out is this self-anointing, so you can see the picture of that hedgehog at the bottom there.
When they're faced with an unfamiliar environment, with lots of unfamiliar smells, they will often produce a huge amount of saliva, you know, associated with that unfamiliar smell, and they'll coat themselves with it. It's part of a sort of, self-defense and sort of self reassurance mechanism, really. It's not something we see commonly, but if we do see it, it's completely normal, but they sort of arch their back, and they can almost look like they're having some sort of neurological episode.
But it's, you know, it's great when you do see it. It shows that you've got sort of a very mobile, normal hedgehog. And it's really nice to see that when you do.
So, as I said, if you're seeing hedgehogs out during the day, that's an issue. About 95% of hedgehogs that are out during the day have got a problem, so they do need bringing in for further investigation and care. They need a full clinical examination to try and find what might be wrong with them, because actually, you know, that's not a clinical sign, but it's a symptom that there is something wrong.
The exception to that, really, is if you've got pregnant or lactating females, they'll often come out during the day and they'll often leave their litter for short periods of time during the day to find, to forage for extra food and extra sustenance for themselves and for the litter throughout that pregnancy or throughout that lactation. Generally, female hedgehogs that are doing this tend to be sort of on a mission. They really look like they're going somewhere.
They, they're not wandering aimlessly or just sitting there. They've actually, you know, they're out, they've got a job to do, and they go and do it. So sometimes you can actually use your behaviour, even if they are out during the day to establish whether or not this might be a hedgehog to be concerned about.
So, what if they don't uncurl? Some of them just absolutely will not uncurl with the best one in the world. Some of them just, just won't.
All hedgehogs should be examined, you know, if they're curled up, all you can really see is their, their dorsal skin and spines, and you've got no idea what could be going on underneath. And if they are being very stubborn and you don't have the time or, you know, you suspect that they're very sick, they are gonna need some veterinary intervention. Now you can do conscious radiography.
So that picture in the top right is a conscious curled up hedgehog. It's not fully diagnostic, but there's no obvious spinal fractures. You can see that there's 4 limbs, you know, you can get some good information from that.
. So we can use that as an initial diagnostic tool. But ultimately, we often anaesthetize them. And we would do that just using normally isofluorine or sevofluorine, if that's what you've got in your practise, just to gas them down.
And even a curled hedgehog, you can either pop into, an anaesthetic induction chamber, or you can use a mask just at the point where everything curls up, and that's normally where their head is. And before long, they'll relaxed enough that you can uncurl them and fully put the mask on their nose. And do give them a good sniff as well.
So, fly strike, particularly in the sort of spring and summer months during fly season, fly strike is really common. And actually, normally the first way of diagnosing that is because they smell so awful, and it, it's got a really distinctive smell. So do give them a good sniff and do trust your nose.
You get quite a lot of information there. So, systematic examination of a hedgehog, you'll see a badger has snuck into this, this slide a little bit. That's, that's not a stripy hedgehog.
But the same principles really apply for systematic examination of most of your mammals. So really, you can just apply the principles of examination of your domestic mammals as well. So, you know, assess their hydration status, and actually, very dehydrated hedgehogs will have a really marked skin tint.
You'll also see very sunken flanks as well, particularly if they're sort of low body condition as well. Try and, you know, once you've got them either anaesthetized or uncurled, palpate the the bones, the joints of the legs and the pelvis. Have a listen to the chest and the heart.
Feel the abdomen, you know, I've, you may be feeling pregnant females, that's really important to try and establish early on, cause it may affect your ongoing rehabilitation, or you may, you know, it's not common that we see tumours, but we do see them, particularly in older hedgehogs. It may be appropriate to assess their temperature. Although if you've got a hedgehog that you feel is very cold, I would generally just recommend warming it up, either in an incubator or using other supplemental heat sources to warm it up.
Examine their feet and their pores thoroughly, assess their gait and behaviour, if you've not been able to do that previously. Have a good look in their eyes and their ears. One good tip, a lot of hedge, a lot of people think that hedgehogs are missing eyes.
It's not that common for hedgehogs to be missing eyes. And it is very common for their eyes to be really quite sunken and really quite deep and quite difficult to see, even sort of when they're anaesthetized. So, do make sure you look really carefully.
It sounds silly when we're used to seeing species where the eyes are so obvious, but it can be quite difficult to, to, to find the eyes sometimes. Do have a good look at the mouth. So, dental wear is a really common problem that we see in hedgehogs.
Jaw fractures after any sort of trauma. You may see wounds around the mouth as well. And of course, you can assess their mucous membrane colour and capillary re full time, as you would with other with other species.
Just be aware of doing this in conscious hedgehogs. I've never yet been bitten by a hedgehog, but I do know people that have. So just be careful if you are doing this when they're conscious.
And then have a good look at the skin as well, so assess for wounds, look for external parasites, particularly we see a lot of fleas and mites, and then you may occasionally see lice, we also see quite a lot of ticks as well. And of course fly strike, as we've already mentioned. And that's just a few ticks.
Now most hedgehogs have a few ticks, but it's when you start seeing sort of high numbers of them that you need to be worried. So, do just also consider the health and safety of working with, with hedgehogs as well. So, bites and scratches, they're fairly sort of low risk for that, as wild animals go, but it's certainly worth, you know, being cautious.
Actually, one of the most painful things that a hedgehog can do to you is spike you or curl up around your hand. And that can, you know, don't underestimate the pain of a tightly curling hedgehog onto your fingers. So just watch out for that.
And then there are a number of zoonotic diseases as well. So, particular ones that I would sort of mention. So, salmonellosis, we, we see quite a lot of, salmonella enteritis, so, sort of faecal, salmonella, dermatophytosis, so ringworm, particularly, trichophyin, we see most commonly in hedgehogs.
Cryptosporliosis has been diagnosed, as well, and a number of hedgehogs, and that certainly has got zoonotic potential, and Staphylococcus as well from, from being spiked. That can cause quite a nasty infection as well. So it's really important that we wear gloves at all times.
There are other zoonotic diseases, to consider as well, and we'll touch on some of those as we go through. So, just to start thinking about some of the common conditions, we in the wildlife world tend to use tattered and dogged as verbs, because it happens so frequently. But this is basically a hedgehog that's typically, it's a dog with a hedgehog.
Most cats don't fancy the luck against, the sort of spiny ball that is a curled up hedgehog. But dogs, quite frequently, think they look like a fun plaything. And we do see quite a lot of nothing.
Nasty dog inflicted injuries. So, they do all require fairly prompt treatment, prompt antibiosis, and it needs to be appropriate and broad spectrum. And don't forget about your analgesia as well.
I think people often forget about analgesia because a lot of our wild animals just don't show pain. It doesn't mean they don't feel it. So you do need to anthropomorphize a little bit and think about, you know, would this be painful in me?
So, you know, don't underestimate the need for analgesia. And a lot of these, as with any other dog bite injuries, they often require general anaesthesia and a thorough explore, and sometimes radiography as well. And a lot of these I've had to put drains in as well, because there's so much dead space as a result of that sort of pulled from the dog.
So also, you know, bear in mind that there may be some underlying condition that meant that the animal was able to be caught by the dog. So, you know, do think about that as well. It's not always the whole story, is that they've just been caught by a dog.
Mhm. And now, probably one of the most common reasons that we see hedgehogs coming in is, orphans. So, species identification is fairly straightforward, you know, it's, it's pretty unlikely that you're going to find orphaned African pygmy hedgehogs.
So if they've got spines, they're gonna be European hedgehogs. It is very seasonal, so they start breeding from April, and they tend to have, sort of an early brood, and then sometimes they'll also be a late brood as well. So we will see the late later litters, who are certainly more vulnerable because they've got to put on all of that weight prior to hibernation.
Make sure we're using an appropriate milk replacer content. Make sure that you're sort of thinking about, the, the fat and protein content of that. Some people advocate using pancreatic enzymes to aid digestion in young hedgehogs.
It's not something that I do personally, but I do know people that, that sort of You know, I think that that does help, so it's worth bearing in mind. This is something that requires specialist rehabilitation, help. So this isn't something that people should be doing in their back gardens, unless they really know what they're doing.
There's certainly, the biosecurity risks, the zoonotic disease risks. Biosecurity is so important because, you know, there's a lot of diseases that these animals can spread between them. And as soon as you start building up a number of hedgehogs, there's, there's definitely a, a risk there of, sort of, Getting disease sweeping through the lot of them.
And then of course there's the risk of imprinting as well. So if they start, from a young age, if they're being hand rear, and they, they don't really know what species they are, that's always a concern with any wild animal and it is something that we do sometimes see with hedgehogs. Another problem that we see, in hedgehogs that are sort of being rehabilitated or are captive is obesity.
Now, it's really common for hedgehogs to be fed ad lib whilst they're in rehab, and particularly if they're in long-term rehab. And this is often the orphans that are kept in for long periods of time until they reach, you know, a suitable weight to be going out and being able to survive hibernation. These are the ones where we often see the problem.
Hedgehogs, you know, they will eat and eat and eat until they can't curl up anymore. And obviously, we can't release them in that state because they've not got their, you know, primary defence mechanism working for them. So they're really vulnerable.
They're also susceptible to orthopaedic problems, as we see in other obese animals, hepatic lippidosis. And you've got to remember that these animals, when they're in rehab, they're not exercising, you know, in the wild, they're going to be walking or, you know, walking around 23 miles a night. That's not something that they're going to be doing when they're just in a pen or even in a, a small cage in a rehabilitation centre.
So really worth being aware of that, making sure we're limiting their food appropriately. Other problems that can be caused by inappropriate diets, is dental disease. Now this is fairly common in older headge drugs.
We do see a lot of dental wear, dental attrition, and tarta and other periodontal disease. We may see missing teeth, secondary infection associated with. That.
And then, of course, you get weight loss, dehydration. And if they can't groom effectively, we'll often see heavy burdens of effective parasites, partly from the inability to groom and partly from the sort of general ability associated with, dental disease and it's sort of impact on nutrition. Now, if there's no other underlying problems, and this is a fairly straightforward case, then actually sometimes you can do a scale and polish, .
And other dental work. But you do need to be very aware that this could be secondary to other things, or you could be dealing with an older hedgehog. In captivity, we would generally give them some biscuits so that we're providing them with something to help with their dental health.
But we do see dental disease in wild hedgehogs as well. So it's not just about inappropriate diets. It's just something that we need to be aware of.
And that's a hedgehog there at the bottom there, that's got a huge number of mites, so it's got dental disease, it's got mites, and I suspect the mites are a combination of general ability and it's inability to groom as well. So ectoparasites often secondary. So just treating the ectoparasites is missing the point, really.
We need to be thinking about why an animal has got itself into a state where it's either unable to groom or it's, you know, so flat that it's managed to pick up so many parasites. So we do need to make sure we're thinking carefully about that and not just treating the parasites blindly. So fleas are probably the most common ectoparasite that we see.
They are really common in light burdens and actually light burdens are normal. Well, hedgehogs have got their own flea, Archaeopssula. It's adapted for hedgehogs, so it's dorsoventrally flattened to help it move easily through the spines.
They do also get the cat flea, and other fleas as well, but the most common one we're gonna see on them is the hedgehog flea. So treatments, apart from thinking about and treating underlying disease, we would only actually treat heavy burdens. So if there's only a couple, we wouldn't treat them.
So permethrin powder, things like your Johnson's cat and dog flea powder are perfectly suitable. Fripreil spray, so frontline spray, is actually very controversial. It's what I use routinely.
I think. A lot of people feel that it's toxic to hedgehogs. I think the reason for that is if you spray, a hedgehog heavily with fipronil spray and then don't provide it with adequate ventilation, that's certainly going to cause it some problems.
But as long as it's well ventilated, and you're using it as sensible doses, I've never had a problem with it. But that's certainly something that you will come across people saying, it's a toxic substance that shouldn't be used in hedgehogs. So ticks are another very common ectop parasite that we see.
Again, hedgehogs have their own tick, they've got Ixoes hexagonist, but they do also pick up other ticks, particularly the sheep tick. There's a number of tick-borne diseases, that we see, so they may get anaemia just from very high burdens of ticks, but other sort of infectious diseases that are spread by ticks, things like Lyme disease, so Borreliosis, Q fever, and tick-borne encephalitis. So they're all things that can be spread by ticks.
And of course, some of those are also zoonotic, so it's worth being aware of, you know, if you've got, if you're dealing with hedgehogs that have got lots of ticks, just be aware of the zoonotic implications there. We normally see the ticks around the ears and the hind limbs and also the skirts, so the junction between spines and head skin. Again, as with any ex parasites, they're often a sign of general debilitation.
In terms of treatment, we want to be providing general supportive care, removing these ticks, if possible, with just a commercial tick remover like you would use for a cat or dog. And then treating them either with ivermectin, or again, fipronil, but being aware of the ventilation. We also see a lot of hedgehogs, caught in, either netting or trapped in drains or cattle grids, other animal traps or caught in litter, so things like six packs of cans.
We can see them caught in those plastic connectors as well. These are sometimes problems where we can quick release them, but we do generally recommend that you monitor them for a long period of, well, a good few days at least, to monitor for any ligature wounds or subsequent pressure necrosis. They can sometimes develop, you know, really nasty pressure necrosis wounds and secondary infection as well.
And if animals have been trapped or entangled for a long time, they may, be dehydrated, they may need nutritional support, and they often do need some, some veterinary care, even if it initially appears to be quite a simple entanglement. So, I would definitely recommend bringing them in and at least monitoring them for a few days to check that, that all is well. So, mites, sorry, we seem to be skipping back to eta parasites here.
The most common ectop parasite that we see in hedgehogs, sorry, the most common mite that we see in hedgehogs is Cainia trippolis. And this is one that actually looks like very sandy deposits. So you can see in both of those pictures, just looks like the hedgehog's buried its head in a beach, really.
Lots of sand. And if you look closely, it's all moving around. This particular mite has been associated with the transmission of ringworm as well.
So, you do sometimes see concurrent dermatophytosis. Other mites that we may see, Sarcoptes and Demodex, and all of them are responsive to ivermectin. Again, I'm gonna keep repeating myself, but always think about the underlying problems, that may have caused them to get into this state where they've got heavy burdens of eparasites.
Often the mites themselves are not of clinical significance. However, if you've got either very excessive parasitism on one side, or, it's only on one side, just make sure you check all the legs, because we often see a leg injury on the same side. Either a missing leg, potentially one that's been surgically amputated, or has been caught or is non-functional.
If they can't groom with one leg, then you'll often see, that is a, you know, heavier number of parasites on that side, which is why we, generally quite strongly don't advocate amputating legs of hedgehogs because of the consequences of this. So, as I say, that is linked to, the spread of ringworm. It's usually trichophyin, and again, they've got their own species.
They're an ACA. But we also do sometimes pick up microsporum on them as well. Of course, as you know, this is zoonotic.
Ringworm is the most common zoonotic disease, that we see. So, another reason why we always, always wear gloves with hedgehogs. About 25% of individuals will, have ringworm, whether or not that's actually clinical or not, they can still spread it to us.
So we may see subclinical disease. There's various treatments that can be used. Andoconazole, so that's amaro, which is topical, and then oral either itraconazole, or tubenophine.
And actually, despite the cascade, we do tend to use tbenophine because there's quite a lot of evidence that it's more effective and it clears it more quickly, even though we have got a veterinary licence for itraconazole. Not for hedgehogs, but for veterinary patients. So, fly strike, as I said, this is another really common, condition that we see, particularly in the spring and summer months.
We tend to see it affecting wounds and mucosal junctions, but particularly in the young hedgehogs, we'll often see heavy, numbers of fly eggs, and then maggots around the eyes, in the nose, and the ears, in the vulva, in the penis, everywhere. They, they just managed to get everywhere. There's a really characteristic smell.
Once you've smelt it once, you'll know exactly what you're dealing with every time you see one. In terms of treatments, again, we need to be looking for underlying causes, underlying wounds. Is there a reason that this hedgehog's managed to get itself into the state that it's in?
And then, generally, it's going to require anaesthesia. So just gaseous anaesthesia, to remove all of the maggots, all of the eggs, clean any wounds. And we'd normally treat them with sys systemic ivermectin as well.
You can see in this picture here, I'm using a mascara brush. This isn't my mascara brush. We had a load donated to us cause they're absolutely fantastic for, getting into the spines.
I mean, if you imagine how difficult it is to get maggots off a fly strike rabbit, for example, trying to do that when you've got an animal that's covered in spines like this is even more difficult. But mascara brushes make all the difference. So it really helped to get off all of the eggs and all of the maggots.
And then we're using an insect insecticidal spray. So, you see the one in the picture there is F10, which is a germicidal wound spray and it's actually got insecticide in there as well. So that's fantastic.
And then we use a, a barrier ointment on them as well, if needs be. Unfortunately, some cases are just too far gone, and actually there isn't anything you can do, if they're sort of really collapsed by the time they're brought into you. So, you know, do consider euthanasia.
These are wild animals. As I'm sure Liz talked to you about in the last session, they're wild animals, they're going back into the wild. They need to be sort of fit for purpose.
They need to be able to, to cope without any further intervention. So, euthanasia is often a consideration. So, salmonella, as I said, this is one of the common zoonotic diseases that we see.
You typically see green faeces, sometimes bloody faeces. Worth being aware that at the point of weaning, we, we know it's can be normal to see green faeces in juveniles. But when they've got salmonellosis, they'll often, you know, start to lose weight quite quickly.
You'll see some individuals just dying out of the blue, and it tends to snowball a little bit as well, once you've got one case, you tend to see more and more and more, even with really good biosecurity. Really, they need supportive care, antibiotics. And actually, it's very, very difficult to actually culture this.
So this is one of the occasions where, actually, I would advocate using broad spectrum antibiotics, even, in the absence of an actual diagnosis and culture and sensitivity, because we know that certainly faecal culture is very challenging. Even culturing, liver at postmortem, sometimes you don't always culture it. But typically you will see signs of hemorrhagic enteritis and septicaemia on postmortem.
Again, be aware this is a zoonotic condition. OK, so, moving on to trauma. RTAs, they are very common.
However, it's not that common for hedgehogs that have fully been hit by cars or other vehicles to be presented, because normally they don't come off very well. They don't normally don't make it to the vets. But when we are presented with them, you know, we need to assess them individually, as you would with any other animal, and approach them in a similar way to any other trauma case in any species that you're more familiar with working with.
You may also see spinal injuries. These can be diagnosed on radiography. But you may also see this phenomenon, which is, quite handy when it comes to diagnosing spinal injuries.
You can see that you've got the cranial portion of the hedgehog, the spines are sort of nice and erect. And then cordially, just distal to that spinal lesion, you can see you've got absolutely no tone, no innovation to those spines at all. So that can be quite handy, and that, you know, is often confirmed on radiography.
Particularly in the summer, we may see garden injuries. So that's a strimmer injury, the, the bottom picture there, and they could be really nasty. Be aware with nasal trauma, because hedgehogs rely so heavily on their olfactory, olfactory function.
They don't have very good vision, but they do need to be able to smell. So if we've got nasal trauma and we're not convinced that they're gonna have good olfactory function in the future, that would often be a cause for euthanasia. OK, so just to talk a little bit more about hibernation, as I said, they normally hibernate between November and March.
Once temperatures start to drop below about 7 to 8 degrees. Actually, hibernation is the greatest cause of mortality in this species. So, up to about 70% of, of young hedgehogs don't survive their first winter.
And certainly autumn juveniles are the most vulnerable because they're born later and they just don't quite have as much time to put on that weight, ready, ready for full hibernation. So this picture here, that's a hibernaculum. So that's a little nest that a hedgehog makes to, to hibernate in.
Quite a cute name, a hibernaculum. And they do need time to make that. So that's another reason why we wouldn't release them in the middle of winter.
So, when it comes to hibernating, we need to think about the weights. It's a really common reason that hedgehogs are admitted, just because they are too small to hibernate. And some of them do require overwintering.
However, we're quite keen on releasing them as soon as they are at an appropriate weight. If we've got a mild spell coming up. So, you know, if the temperatures coming up are going to be over about 5 degrees for at least 3 nights, that should be enough time for them to find their feet, to build a hibernaculum, and to survive hibernation if they're an appropriate weight.
So you can see the weights there early on in the year, we'll release them even from 400 grammes or so. As the year progresses, we want them to be heavier and heavier until sort of once you're in the hibernation season, we really want them to be about 700 grammes. And generally, we would hard release hedgehogs.
Some people like to soft release them with a hedgehog box and give them a bit of supplementary feeding, just to sort of ease them into it. The vast majority of hedgehogs that are soft release just run off and you never see them again. But it's, it's quite nice for people to do.
And this can be a really good way as well to engage the public if you've got sort of clients that are bringing wildlife in and they want to get involved with the release as well. That can be a really nice thing to do. OK, so we can't talk about common conditions of hedgehogs without talking about ender parasites, and, in particular, lung worm.
So, morbidity approaches 100% in autumn juveniles. So that's basically every juvenile hedgehog that comes in is gonna have lung worm. There's two main lung worms that we see.
So there's Eucoleus aerophili Aerophilis, which was previously known as Capillaria aerophila. And then there's chronosomus striatum. So these are the two most common long worms that we see.
There are a number of other ender parasites that we see, of, of less significance, really, generally. So, there's intestinal capillaria species, thorny-headed worm, which seems to come in cycles. Some years we see a lot of it, some years not so much.
This year has been a bad year for it. And that's the anthocephalins, and they can be really nasty. They cause, they sort of perforate the gastrointestinal tracts and cause a really nasty peritonitis.
We also see an intestinal fluke, brachylamus, and Coccidia as well. Worth being aware that your coccidia's got a direct life cycle. So if you are rehabilitating these species, then hygiene is super important.
We don't generally advocate routine treatment of hedgehogs for endparasites, but we do advocate routine sampling. There's so many different things that they can have, and they're probably gonna have something. But if you don't test, then you don't know what you're dealing with and you don't know what you should be treating.
So it's just a few images here of common end of parasites that we see on faecal examination in hedgehogs. So, the most common one is on the left there. I don't know if you can see my cursor.
But these are the eucoleus aerophilus or capillary aerophila eggs. So you see those as eggs and faeces. In contrast to that, the cranosomus striatum, we see as larval forms in the faeces.
So you'll often see those wriggling in a fresh faecal sample. And typically, I would do a faecal floatation. To pick up these, you're gonna get a much clearer picture of what you've got.
They're coccidioliosis. They just look like coccidia from any other species. So, isosor is the most common one.
And just to see the size of your coccydia, easy compared to Eucoleus egg in that bottom right-hand corner. And then there's the racylaus fluke as well. So there's, there's lots of good parasites that you can find on faecal, so it's definitely worth doing faecal, flotation and direct work perhaps of every hedgehog that comes in, but most importantly in the autumn juveniles, cos they really do have heavy burdens.
So, just to talk a little bit more about the lung worm complex, it's often a mixed infection. We often see sort of both the renosoma and the eucoleus. And we often also have secondary bacterial infection as well.
Most commonly, that's Bella, but there's a number of other bacteria that we may see infecting as well. As I say, most common in juveniles. It's, they, they pick it up from intermediate hosts.
So slugs and snails and earthworms. So that's why we generally don't recommend feeding a wild diet whilst these animals are in captivity, because actually, we could be inadvertently infecting them with endparasites. Crenosoma can also, spread transplacentally.
So if you've got unweaned juveniles coming in, then crenosoma's going to be the more likely lung worm that you're going to see. Clinical signs that you may see, there may be very general non-specific signs. So weight loss, in appetence, lethargy, weakness, ataxia, and death.
So, you know, can be very severe signs, but also very non-specific. But we do see the sort of more specific respiratory signs. So things like coughing, nasal discharge, wheezing and open mouth breathing, and sometimes even conjunctivitis as well.
Now, I note that this is an angiostrongullus, so we don't tend to see the coagulopathies that you may associate with lung worm in dogs. Now, in terms of, of worming them, the most important thing is that they're actually well enough and strong enough to be able to cough. So supportive care is the most important thing, and we'll come on to some sort of adjunctive treatment in a minute.
There's various different worming regimes when it comes to antthalmitic. So, lovamazole, is, is sort of what we would most commonly use, for, particularly the renosomer, so the, the more common lung worm. And often we'd combine that with ivermectin as well.
In young hedgehogs, we might use fembendazole. Actually, fembendazole, although it tends to be the go to for a lot of our domestic patients, it's not very effective at reducing the, the burden of lung worm and hedgehogs. So we would tend to only use it in young animals or animals that we were worried about going straight in with something that was going to be more effective.
No, obviously we do get a mask worm die off when we, we treat with these anthomenttics, and if they've got very heavy burdens, we, we will often use adjunctive treatments as well, such as, anti-inflammatories to try and reduce the effects of that mask worm die off. If you are picking up scestodes, or tapeworms, then Prawnel, as in other species. Just whilst we're on the subject of respiratory disease, and before we talk about some more of that supportive care, there are other causes of respiratory disease, of course.
So on top of lung worm, we've got those bacterial infections, particularly Bordetella and pastorrella. And then trauma as well. So I've already mentioned, nasal trauma and the, the implications of that.
But also, we need to be looking closely for fractures of the palates, maxilla, and nose, because they all carry a very grave prognosis. So it's worth just looking for those. And then when it comes to treatments, we often will give antibiotics because secondary infections are so common.
Potentiated amoxicillin is my first line. It's a good broad spectrum antibiotic to use as a first line. Just note the dose.
It's a bit higher than what you're going to be using in your sort of cats and dogs. So 30 to 50 makes per cake. Either subcutaneously or orally, and generally subcutaneous or at least parenteral drug therapy is preferred in her drugs because they don't tolerate oral medication very well, and it's also less accurate dosing to try and give it orally.
Sometimes we will use Beryl, but generally we're gonna be going for potentiated amoxicillin in the first instance. So broomhexane is a great bronchial eucalytic, so we can give that, orally. Unfortunately, we used to give it injectably, but that's, no longer available, sadly.
We are using lambuterol currently as our bronchodilator. And as I said, if we have got very heavy burdens and we're worried about either, . Allergic reactions, or if we've got a lot of, bronchial inflammation secondary to the parasites, then, sort of one-off dose of dexamethasone could be quite effective.
And nebulization is also a really good way of getting drugs down into the airways, but also just helping to, loosen up some of those bronchial secretions and help them cough it up. So, either with just saline or actually very dilute, 1 to 250, F10. OK, just quickly to touch on, a couple of other infectious diseases.
I'm not going to go into too much detail on these because they're really not very common, but just to be aware that these are diseases that can affect hedgehogs. So, foot and mouth disease, this was reported in a cattle outbreak back in 1947. And sort of everybody was up in arms about hedgehogs spreading foot and mouth disease.
Actually, the role of hedgehogs spreading this disease in sort of cattle, outbreaks is, is probably insignificant. It's just worth being aware that it can affect them. Cryptosporidosis, of course, is zoonotic.
There is a morbillivirus, or a distemper-like virus that, has been found in hedgehogs. Eucinia, is another one, which, can cause sort of similar signs to, pseudo tuberculosis in other species, chronic weight loss, weakness, sometimes diarrhoea, and actually fairly classic on postmortem, granulomatous lesions in the spleen and liver. Tick-borne diseases we've already mentioned, and leptospirosis, again, I've just mentioned those two for the, Zoonotic implications.
And then just in brackets at the bottom there, I've put chickenpox. So, anecdotally, I know of a couple of rehabilitators who have, found hedgehogs with chickenpox, and this actually can be a zoonosis, but it can also be an anthroponosis, or a disease that can be spread from people to hedgehogs. So just be aware that it can go both ways.
So, diarrhoea, really common, to see diarrhoea in hedgehogs, a number of different causes, but actually really important to just know what your normals are cos it, they can really vary, particularly at different age groups that you may be seeing. We often see weight loss, pain, and sometimes they, they'll just die. Often this is going to be salmonella, and it may be because they've got underlying poor immunity.
Sometimes we'll see back to prolapse actually is the first sign of this if they've got ongoing sort of severe diarrhoea. Missing injured legs. So, I mentioned earlier that we, we don't advocate amputation of hedgehogs.
There are rehabbers out there that will surgically amputate legs of hedgehogs if they're, you know, not viable, if they're not going to be sort of, salvageable. But they need 4 fully functioning limbs to be released. Now, if you ever see a hedgehog running around with 3 legs, but you wouldn't know they had 3 legs.
They ambulate very, very well, but they don't just need their legs for walking around. And the difference between wild hedgehogs and our domestic pets is that we can groom our domestic pets. We can give them extra to parasite treatments.
We can't do that for wild hedgehogs. So if they're missing limbs, if they've got compound fractures that aren't going to heal, if we've got legs that are going to be non-functional or are missing, Unfortunately, we do euthanize them, because they just, they, they don't do well at all with three legs. And ultimately, I've, I've never seen a case where I've known I had 3 legs and, and it's gone on and been OK.
Often they'll come in and they'll have huge abscesses and excessive parasitism around their ears, and then you'll find that they're missing a leg on that side. So, just finally, wanted to mention burns. So this is typically something that we see around bonfire nights.
Hedgehogs have got a propensity to nest in piles of leaves and unlit bonfires, which is why, of course, the advice is always to build your bonfire and then move it before lighting it so that you don't do this to your poor hedgehogs. Sometimes we'll see really nasty skin burns, often charred and blunted spines. But we may also See signs of smoke inhalation, ocular irritation, corneal ulceration, and, and the, the prognosis is not good for these poor little guys.
But treatment is just going to be, as for any other animal with burns. So supportive care, oxygen, analgesia, of course, is key. Ocular topical treatments, you know, do look for ulcers.
Use your fluoresce. Apply your basic principles to these animals. And, you know, potentially, topical treatments for any burns that you see.
So, just a final note, there's a couple of weird and wonderful things that we see in hedgehogs that I just thought it would be fun to mention at the end. This, I should note, is an African pygmy hedgehog. So most of the silly pictures that you see online of hedgehogs doing silly things are gonna be African pygmies.
But this is something that we see in wild hedgehogs. So, balloon syndrome, it's a fairly unusual condition. I've been working with wildlife for about 8 years, and I've seen this maybe 5 times.
So it's not something we see very commonly at all. It is hedgehog specific. It's basically where they get a subcutaneous emphysema, so they, they get a huge buildup of air underneath their spines, and they blow up like a balloon.
Often, the first thing you notice about these guys is that they're really, really light. So they look like maybe a 700 gramme hedgehog, and you pick them up and they're 200 or 300 grammes because they're full of air. It's often related to trauma, and, particularly trauma to the airways, so the trachea.
Or it can be gas producing bacteria. And basically you just need to drain the air out and do a thorough clinical examination under general anaesthesia to look for any, any additional injuries. They do carry a fairly guarded prognosis, but I have released a couple of these.
And then just finally, pop off syndromes. This is not the nicest picture, but I've only ever seen this once. So this is an albicularis muscle prolapse.
So this is where the purse string muscle that basically allows the hedgehog to curl up pops off, hence the name. It's, again, hedgehog specific. It's often related to extreme exertion or trauma, or potentially a prolonged struggle.
So, I have seen this. The case that I saw it in was a, a female, that was dystopic, and she'd obviously been struggling for a while. And basically, the albicularis muscle just pops off.
They, And you sort of end up with the, the pelvis and the, the hind limbs exposed in a really unusual way. It's really strange. They basically need analgesia, anaesthesia, just to relax them so you can replace the ubicularis muscle, treat any underlying problem, and actually, the prognosis is reasonable.
So, yeah. There we go. So that is all from me, a bit of a whistle stop tour of hedgehogs and their common conditions.
And if anybody's got any questions, I think, I don't know if we've got time for a couple of questions, but I'm more than happy to take them if we do. Thank you very much, Bev. That was a very, very informative and thorough webinar.
I hope there aren't any hedgehogs listening, so they might be a little bit depressed after that, but, not all bad, it's not all bad. No, I'm sure, sure. So we do have a couple of minutes left, for some questions.
Deborah's asking, can you tell me a bit more about the thorny headed worms in hedgehogs? So, thorny-headed worms, they seem to be something that we see fairly psychically. So some, this, this year, or when I say this year, sort of the tail end of last year, we saw a huge number of them.
So across, across all the rehabilitators that I spoke to, we were seeing a lot of them. They're acanthocephalins, and they basically, as I say, they, they perforate the gastrointestinal tract, cause a really nasty, really painful, Peritonitis, you'll often see these hedgehogs screaming. So hedgehogs very rarely scream or vocalise at all.
The few cases where I have seen them, sort of, you know, screaming. It's been horny-headed worm. And on postmortem, you can see little white, almost like tiny grains of rice throughout the mesentry and throughout the gastrointestinal tract.
And yeah, it's a really very unpleasant condition. But as I say, you know, last, the, the year before, I wasn't seeing any at all. So, it is one of those things that, that we just see some years and not others.
Yeah. I don't know if, if there's anything more specific that you want to know about them. You, you can sometimes see the, the adult acanthocephalins in the in the faeces as well.
So you can sometimes see them visible to the naked eye. Just like little, look like little, almost tiny grass seeds or small grains of rice. And treatment wise, we would use Prazoquanal, and or lavamazole, depending on what else they've got.
Very interesting, thank you very much, Bev. I hope that helps Deborah. Hannah's asking what milk replacer would you recommend for supplementary excuse me, supplementary feeding juveniles.
So we use a baby dog milk, so sort of royal cannon type baby dog. Other, other baby dog milks are available. And as I say, we don't actually add anything to it, but some people would add, pancreatic enzymes to it.
Perfect, thank you very much. And then we've got a question here from Paul who's saying, who's asking, do you find amoxicillin LA injections as effective as Sinulox? So I need to give alternate alternate day injections.
Sulox very, very thick and reactive in some cases. So I don't use the LA so I couldn't comment from sort of personal experience. However, the, certainly for sort of salmonellosis, they need high doses fairly frequently.
So I'd be a bit reluctant to go to an every other day dosing. Something that's long-acting in other mammals is not necessarily long-acting in sort of hedgehogs and other small mammals. So I would be a bit concerned about the long-acting nature of it.
That's not based on any evidence, but certainly in other, with other drugs, they don't. You know, the metabolism's much faster, and they don't last as long as you would expect them to in other species. But yeah, I, I don't actually I've not seen many, if any.
I've seen maybe a couple of reactions to sinos, but I think that was related to sort of operator error rather than an actual genuine reaction. So, I use a huge amount of Cinealox and a huge number of hedgehogs, and I've never really had a problem with it. So I've never had any reason to go to sort of a moxie LA instead.
OK, that's very interesting. I hope that helps, Paul. I have another question here.
Is it possible to reduce or prevent the imprinting risk? Yeah. So basically, with any, any animal that you are, hand rearing, there's an imprinting risk.
And the best ways to reduce that are to hands up as possible, to mix them with others of their species as early as possible. So, generally, with juvenile hedgehogs, we will have them in sort of small groups, particularly if they've come in groups, and often the, the unweaned ones do come in in groups, because they, you know, somebody will find a nest. But at least then they know what species they are.
And just being as hands off, not talking around them. And, you know, as far as possible, not making the hand rearing a pleasurable experience for them, really. And just, you know, getting them weaned as quickly as possible and then being as hands off as you can with them.
And I think don't underestimate the sort of the impact of your voice on them. So hearing humours around them can be a factor. Absolutely.
I think there's been a few er videos on social media recently of the er hedgehogs being bathed and and massaged and all sorts, so none of that, it sounds like. Yeah, yeah, exactly, unless they're African pygmy hedgehogs, although they're controversial as pets anyway. All right, OK.
There's, there's been a, a few sort of campaigns in recent years to take note of, or or check, you know, the, . Bonfires and things like that, would you say that's led to a reduction in the number of cases you see, or perhaps more because people are looking out for them? No, I think it has.
I think when I first started working with Wildlife, as I say, about 89 years ago, I was seeing a lot more than I am now. I think in the last year, I've only seen a few, maybe 2 or 3 that have been burnt, whereas it, it used It's very anecdotally, in my experience, there seems to be a lot fewer. And I think these campaigns and sort of raising awareness has really made a difference.
So, we just hope we, you know, keep on doing that. Cause it's just, it's just so sad, cause they're just, you, you literally set fire to. And it's normally completely well-meaning.
It's not, you know, people just don't realise that they need to move their bonfires. But yeah, I do think it has reduced in recent years. Yeah, I certainly hope it, it has an effect.
Did used to, I was saying, earlier to my colleagues, we did used to have a couple of hedgehogs that would come, . Into our back garden quite often. But, we always made sure they were happy and at the back of the, bush.
It's lovely, it's lovely seeing them out in the garden, and lots of people can do to sort of encourage them into the garden as well, you know, putting out, putting out food for them and, you know, creating areas that are gonna provide suitable habitats for them. So, you know, encouraging leaf litter, that sort of thing, because that encourages their natural prey as well. So.
Yeah, it's, it's a great way as well to engage children is it in in wildlife and nature, it's it's fantastic. I have a question here from Martina who's asking how long would you recommend to treat lung worm? So, it depends what we're talking about treatment.
So, Atholintics, we normally do a a course of 3. So, I would normally do a dose of levamazole, at 27 mg per kg, followed by another dose of levamazole 3 days later, followed by a dose of ivermectin at 0.2 mg per kg, another 3 days later.
And usually that's enough to knock the actual parasites on the head. However, you often need ongoing, supportive care, so fluids and antibiotic therapy. And, broncholytics will often use, and, brohexane as well.
So, you, you buy solvent, and nebulizing. And actually, often we can end up treating them for 234 weeks, with some of that supportive care. But normally, the initial antalytic treatment to treat the lung worm itself is fairly short-lived, so that's normally done within about 10 days just on intermittent doses.
If you look online, there are a huge number of, Recommended worming protocols. But just if you are using anything like that, just think about exactly why you're using each treatment. So, you know, we've really sort of fine tuned our worming protocol based on, firstly, doing routine screening and knowing what we're actually treating.
But also, you know, we don't routinely give them antibiotics. We don't routinely throw lots of drugs at them all at once, or, you know, in one day, because that can be a lot for them to take. And I think actually, Giving them at least 24, if not 48 hours if they of supportive care before you treat at all is really, really valuable because you can kill them with worming them.
So it's really important to make sure they're strong enough before you go in with the wormers. Yeah, definitely very good advice there. Just one final question then, appreciate, we have, just slightly run over.
So Paul's asking, what's the smallest levamasol container available? As a small animal practise, we would need to buy a 100 mL plus. What do you use for?
I don't think you can even buy it in 100 mL. We, I think we buy, buy the litre. However, it is designed for cattle, so it's relatively cheap.
The problem with it is, as any in, well, as, as most injectables, the, broach date, once you've broached it, you should be getting rid of it within 28 days, which obviously is a huge waste. So either borrow some from a local farm animal practise, or suck it up. I think, unfortunately, the only advice I've got.
There is, there, there is no smaller, there is no smaller bottle available, unfortunately. If you can find a way of, of getting somebody to to count it in a sterile manner into a sort of, injectable bottle, then, then you can do that as well. But you've still got your 28 day limit.
And actually, you're not gonna get through very, I mean, even in a, you know, busy hedgehog hospital, you, you get through a matter of a few mils, cause they're getting so little at a time. Mm. It is, it's frustrating.
If you live anywhere near Staplely, then you're welcome to come and get some of ours. Well there you are, that's, that's good advice for people. Wonderful.
Just the final comment then is from Craig, who said, very good lecture, learned a lot. So a bit of positivity there to end on. I'm pleased.
Excellent. Thanks so much, Bev. It's been a pleasure listening to you and to, to Liz earlier as well.
Thank you to everyone for attending.