Mistletoe and spines

SPIKE the hedgehog — cosy winter

THIS baby hedgehog is dreaming of a cosy Christmas after he was rescued from a Chadderton garden.

He — or it could be she — has settled into a warm cage for winter after Vivien Lees spotted him foraging for food.

Vivien (57) originally saw the youngster’s paw prints in the snow in her garden in Thatch Leach.

She then tracked down the cute creature — whom she called Spike — and contacted the British Hedgehog Preservation Society for help.

Experts there advised her to keep Spike warm and feed it over the winter.

Vivien, an arts and crafts teacher with Oldham Lifelong Leaning has also been researching hedgehogs on the internet and said: “They hibernate from about October to Match. To see one now, it is obviously in some kind of distress.

“Very small hedgehogs can’t hibernate, they just have to wander around looking for food and quite often they do not survive.

“I put it in a box with a jumper and gave it food and water and someone then gave me a hamster cage.”