17/05/2026
We've had a great response to our 'Out in the day is not OK' campaign. A big thank you goes out to all of our lovely volunteers who covered Ealing in our posters.
Our message is a simple, but very important one - reacting to a hedgehog out in the day is really, really key. There is, however, one exception to the 'Out in the day' message. This relates to foraging mother hedgehogs. These are hedgehogs that move with purpose, usually collecting food and nesting materials.
Our message is still simply 'Out in the day is not OK' because we haven't, in the three years we have been doing this work, picked up a foraging mum. We have, however, had dozens and dozens of unwell hedgehogs that had been left out in the day often for days on end. This results, often, in unnecessary suffering for these animals (e.g. broken, infected and painful limbs, severe dehydration and flystrike which, of course, is a killer if not treated quickly.) More often than we would wish, these situations lead to the hedgehog being put to sleep by one of the vets we work with.
The important thing to know is that our simple message is backed up by a team of trained volunteers. When we get a message to our help line our team is very aware of this issue and immediately check as to whether it might be a foraging mum. Also as soon as a hog comes in, we immediately check for gender and teats, so if there is any doubt, and the hog can be released, we would release it. If it is too ill to release, we would go and find the hoglets.
