Helping the Hedgehogs in my garden

Over the past few weeks I have been noticing a good number of Hedgehogs feeding under my bird table and around my garden. This got me thinking about how many Hedgehogs there are living in the cemetery near my home and in my garden. So for a Autumn project me and my brother decided to buy some digital scales and weight the Spikey visitors that feed around the area. By weighing them and identifying any feature each Hedgehog has hopefully we can get an idea of how many we have. The process takes about 3 mins where we weight, photograph then release quietly back where we found the Hedgehog so any disturbance is kept to a minimum plus we leave some food nearby them as a treat.

Here a Hedgehog enjoys some chicken leftovers that had fallen on the floor

In the first night we had four individuals 3 small and 1 large Hedgehog from 7pm to 8pm.
The largest below we have named Max if we take the total weight and take away the weight of the tub were left with the Hedgehogs weight of 1,202g. Anything over 550g at this time of year is okay as by the end of Autumn they need to weigh over 600g to survive hibernation.

With the smaller Hedgehog weighing 697g - 122g = 575g so it seems we have a healthy amount of Hedgehogs of 4 or more with weights over 500g +.

Were hoping to keep weigh the Hedgehogs till the end of Autumn and if we find any underweight then hopefully we can help them by looking after them till the spring. Lots of research to be done but if its helping wildlife then I am willing to do what I can even if that means lots of reading.
Our Hedgehog survey Area marked in Blue which is surrounded by roads and yet we have a good population and never see any casualties.

Thanks for reading my blog
Stay wild, be happy and be safe

Mike