The Chog

The Chog waddled into the paddock at the end of March 2008. He/she/it (not game to look) was in a pretty sad state and contemplating ending it all via the pond. It was there that the sucker in the story found him/her/whateva. Hedgehogs are not supposed to be out and about in the daytime, tho this one was quite safe cos you could smell it from 10 paces and no self-respecting predator would have taken the slightest bit of interest, with the exception of one.

Warning! Graphic description of grossness follows, wusseys look away!

Closer inspection revealed Chog had an injured leg which was possibly the cause of his even bigger problem, flies. Huge ones. Poor Chog had been fly blown. Ugh. Not for the faint-hearted is the job of picking maggots off a hedghogs rear end. The Chog was a mess, he had what can only be described as mange. Mange and maggots, no wonder the pond and afterlife were looking good, on reflection it probably would have been better to let nature take its course. Darn my sookiness!

A quick visit to our local vet clinic was called for (bless them for not laughing when they saw Chog) and off home with some wormer and fly-strike powder. I must say, Chog is a lot quieter to transport than those sook cats.

10 points if you can make out his ears, eyes and nose.This is what a mangey hog looks like, yes mum, I know you told me never to touch them cos they were disease riddled varmits but he is kinda cute in a gross way. And you will notice that I am wearing gloves.

Ten days on and he has lost most of the quills on his back and rear end. They are still dropping off in clumps. I searched on the internet for information on hedgehogs, their growth etc, and I think it will take about 4-6 weeks? for the quills to regrow. Crikey, I better get more cat food in, hmmm, then again, those layabouts can afford to go on a diet! Chogs' care has included an oil bath (for the complexion you know) to aid in smothering any remaining mangey things and to encourage the growth of new undies, hee hee, seems to be working. I will let him go in the vege garden when he is ready and see if he stays around. He has been living in the cat transport cage in the garden shed and gets fed twice a day so maybe he will think he's on to a good thing. Hmm... do hedgehogs think?

Aww, he is starting to look better... sure he is! The flower is just to make him look a bit prettier, goodness knows he needs it! I have refered to Chog as 'he' for ease of writing but 'he' may yet turn out to be Chogette, I have no idea and sure as heck are not going looking!

Chog, getting tamer 3 weeks later and still losing spines, although there are a few little spikey bits starting to appear and, arrgh! look at that face! haha, so cute! Oh, that is his bedding he is hugging - a bit like a security blanky maybe?