Maurita Plouff's European Adoption Story:
Maurita Plouff's European Hedgehog, Kima, at The Fylde Hedgehog Rescue Trust.
July 3rd, 2003
Let me condense her story:
"One afternoon near the beginning of June, a hedgehog was found in a garden, very obviously injured and weak, dragging one of her back legs.
When she was brought to the Rescue Centre, she was very cold and severely dehydrated. Her severe leg injury had obviously been restricting her mobility for quite some time and had prevented her from finding enough food to stay alive. Her body temperature was so low that flies had already mistaken her for dead and had laid their eggs on her, and these were already hatching into maggots.
We gave her warmed subcutaneous fluids to help counteract dehydration and shock, and then the painstaking task followed to remove every single fly egg and maggot by hand. She was wrapped in a nice warm towel and put into an incubator and left in quiet for an hour to recover from her ordeal. It was important to remove every single fly egg because warming the hedgehog would only hasten the hatching process. When hatched the maggots would proceed to eat the hedgehog alive. We cleaned her injured leg and then gave her antibiotic to help clear the infection which looked like it had spread throughout the whole of her leg.
The next day she was taken to the Vet so that her injured leg could be assessed, but it was too swollen to be able to tell whether or not it was broken. After a further week of intensive care, the vet decided that the only course of action would be to amputate. At least she was stronger now than she was a week ago, and hopefully would stand a better chance of surviving the anaesthetic. After her operation, we brought her back to the Rescue Centre. After several days of intensive care in an incubator, she slowly started to improve. Her stitches would dissolve in time and so it was just a matter of keeping the wound clean and keeping an eye open for any recurring infection. Day by day she got a little bit stronger and was now able to make her way to her food dish. It took a while for her to get used to having only three legs, but she was doing remarkably well. Her appetite improved and she started gaining weight. Her leg wound is healing up nicely.
Once her wound has completely healed, she will be transferred into my fully enclosed garden for a little while to see how she copes. If all goes well we will find her a suitable large, fully secure garden which will then become a permanent foster home - a safe haven where she can live out the rest of her life in complete safety with someone there to keep an eye on her and make sure she is OK."
In choosing a name for this lucky girl, I wanted it to be short and memorable, in case she needs/wants to learn her name, once she's at home in her safe garden. I have named her "Kima" (Kee-ma) - a Saxon name first documented in the 1200s. For history buffs, the name is most likely a diminutive for Cyneburh, a feminine name noted as early as the 600s, when Penda, who was the king of Mercia (a few kings before Aethelred) used the name for his daughter. The name comed from kyne (royal) + burh (fortress, keep) - and since Kima will live in a splendid enclosed garden, and will be the queen of her domain, I thought the name would fit her.
Here's her photo - isn't she lovely?
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