Heavyweight hedgehog on diet after gorging on biscuits
A giant hedgehog which grew to four times its normal size by gorging on dog biscuits has been put on a diet — and may be forced to exercise on a treadmill.
The podgy hedgehog, called Huff Puff, tips the scales at more than 4 lbs and is the size of a football.
“I’ve looked after hedgehogs for 20 years but have never seen anything like Huff-Puff,” said Maureen Webb, who runs the Furze Pig Hedgehog Rescue Centre in Ross on Wye, Herefordshire, where the nine-month-old orphan has been cared for since she was found cold and shivering in a garden shed last October.
“She just seems to keep growing. I don’t feed her any more than the others but she’s getting bigger and bigger. It’s amazing because she was a tiny little thing when she came in.
“I’m reducing her diet now and cutting breakfast out all together. I suppose it’s a bit like people – some only have to look at cream teas and they put weight on.”
Webb told the BBC that Huff Puff was a “fiesty madam” who did “everything to the extreme.”
“I’m thinking of getting a treadmill for her,” she added.