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Wales Online
Wales Online
National
Ben Barry, SWNS & Richard Blackledge

Hedgehog found weighing the same as a deck of cards makes miracle recovery

A hedgehog found close to death weighing the same as a deck of cards has made a miracle recovery. Honey arrived at animal rescue charity Prickles and Paws as a hoglet - severely underweight at 97 grams, and battling pneumonia and long worm.

Staff feared Honey wouldn't survive a week after being rescued from a garden. She was only a fifth her expected size and was dehydrated too.

But the little creature has been nursed back to health in just a month. She has reached a weight of 500 grams and now sports some impressive new spines.

Katy South, 28, animal care and operations manager at the charity based in Cornwall, said: "Honey the hedgehog has done brilliantly. She was in such a poor way when she came in, we didn't think she would make it in the first week - it was real trouble stabilising her in the first 24 hours.

"She has grown into her ears. Honey has done brilliantly, she has reached release weight and will be going back to the garden where she was found."

The charity hopes to release Honey back into the wild this weekend after acclimatising in an outside hutch. When Honey was found in August there was no sign of siblings or family and she had indicators of prickle loss, caused by ringworm.

"Her body condition was awful, she was really underweight. She was cold on admission and really dehydrated," Katy said.

"When she first came in she went straight into an incubator, she spent about a week in there in intensive care. She had a course of antibiotics as she had pneumonia, she also tested positive for long worm."

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