Last summer, during the long dry spell, we were sitting outside in the garden. Pim had already heard a strange sound from the neighbours' garden a few times. Anouschka now heard it too. Because we weren't sure what the sound was and wanted to know if an animal might be in distress, we climbed over the super sturdy fence into the neighbours' garden. There we saw a surprise: a little hedgehog! The hedgehog, which we named '1', made funny noises, like a baby with bronchitis.
We immediately looked up what hedgehogs need and whether this sound was normal. Apparently snuffling, huffing, and grunting are perfectly normal hedgehog behaviour. Still, we were a little worried. Hedgehogs obviously need water and food, but because of the drought there was no water nearby and the insects hedgehogs normally eat were nowhere to be found. Since the website of the Egelbescherming said that feeding cat food was allowed, Pim immediately climbed back over the fence into our own garden to fetch water and some of our cat Saartje's food.
1 was startled when we came closer and rolled into a ball, but after five minutes unrolled and started digging in happily! We had no idea so much food could fit into such a small animal! While 1 was busy munching away, we heard more noise from another direction. It was another hedgehog! We named him '2'. 2 looked less well. He barely moved and sounded short of breath. We decided to give him food and water and figure out when it would be necessary to call in the Egelbescherming. Because 2 could still walk in a straight line and had clear, bright eyes, we decided to keep an eye on him to see whether he'd be doing better the next day. We topped up the food and climbed back over the fence.
All that climbing was quite the adventure, and it was wonderful to see the content hedgehogs in the neighbours' garden a few evenings in a row. 2 also started sounding better and better. Secretly, we rather liked the idea of having the hedgehogs in our own garden. Besides, hedgehogs poop where they eat, and we didn't want to burden the neighbours with all the hedgehog droppings. So Pim dug out an existing little passage until it had a diameter of 13 cm. Anouschka laid a lovely trail of cat food (by now even kitten food, since that's better for hedgehogs) through the tunnel into our garden. And sure enough! The little hedgehogs found their way into our garden!
From that moment on, Anouschka fed the hedgehogs every evening. Most evenings we'd hear the hedgehogs arrive around 9 PM, since they're quite loud. We'd then watch the happily munching hedgehogs by the light of our phone flashlights. Sometimes there were two of them, sometimes just one, and it was always fun to watch. The hedgehogs got used to our voices and stayed calm when we gave them extra food or talked to them. One evening we decided not to feed the hedgehogs, to encourage them to forage for food in our garden themselves, now that the drought was over. That led to an impossible-to-refuse look from '1', who stared at us as if to say: 'Why haven't you refilled my bowl?' The cat food came out after all, and 1 happily tucked into his food!
A little less than a week later, one of Anouschka's students gave the hedgehogs fitting names: from then on 1 was called Knabbel and 2 was called Babbel. Knabbel is the hedgehog who's fine with being watched while eating; Babbel is shy and loud at the same time.
