![]() Interestingly it seemed that the more often the hedgehogs moved nests, the greater their loss of body mass. Bottom: exposed hedgehog nest at base of a thin hedge. Top: hedgehog nest under a rock near a pond. Surprisingly, whilst the males at Hartpury lost about 15% on average – a similar amount to the females that also lived there – the male hedgehogs at Brackenhurst increased their body mass. ![]() At both sites females lost body mass, 14% at Lucy’s campus Hartpury and 25% at Brackenhurst in Nottinghamshire. Lucy gathered information for twenty-one animals, weighing them just before they went into a deep slumber, and again when they became active. Or if there’s less food available then the hedgehog population is likely to remain low and vulnerable. It’s important to know because in areas with little or lower food availability, hedgehogs may expend energy roaming further looking for more food to put on weight. ![]() One issue concerning us is how much weight hedgehogs lose whilst they’re sleeping. Lucy and her surveyors worked over two winters, collecting information on 138 hibernation nests. Habitat varies across the sites consisting of a mixture of arable and pasture fields, amenity grassland, woodland and hedgerows, as well as the university buildings. Both farms are large, over 330ha, and made up of university campuses alongside the farmland. Lucy, along with Dr Richard Yarnell & Dr Antonio Uzal, radio-tracked 31 hedgehogs at two different mixed commercial farms in England, one arable-dominated (Brackenhurst) and the other pasture-dominated (Hartpury). Left: hedgehog in a man-made hedgehog house. So she was perfectly placed to investigate the different factors associated with hibernation and which may be important in impacting hedgehog numbers. Dr Lucy Bearman-Brown, senior lecturer at Hartpury University, Gloucestershire, has been following the lives of the hedgehogs on her campus for nearly ten years. That’s a lot of time spent sleeping and, considering their numbers have plummeted in recent years, it’s important to know what specific threats they may face during this period. Hedgehogs spend roughly half their lives in hibernation. ![]()
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