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You never know what you might find when you go digging for buried treasure. Some people have made some truly amazing discoveries over the years and even struck it rich unearthing priceless artifacts. There are many areas known for possibly having buried treasure and hidden relics, and one such place is a town called Bishop’s Stortford in Hertfordshire, England. It was once a Roman settlement and was the location of a historic market, as well as being an evacuation center for British people over the years.
One of the town’s residents, Lynne Garner, owned a sizeable piece of property and from time to time she and her husband would look around for buried treasure. One day they had been digging near a rockpile in the back garden when she spotted something unique looking among the stones. It was a dark brown lump and upon closer inspection they realized it was a tiny little hedgehog!
Hedgehogs are common in the area, but the one they found was not normal looking, which is what threw them off at first. Instead of having a body covered in spines, he was mostly bald and exposed. They rushed him to the local vet, A120 Veterinary Surgery, where doctors diagnosed him as having alopecia. They explained that it had likely been brought on by trauma the poor little guy had suffered in childhood and that a normal hedgehog would usually have around 5,000 spines. The stress from whatever he’d been through caused him to lose his spines and that left him extremely vulnerable to predators and the elements.
Now that Lynne knew what the little animal’s problem was, she set out to help him heal. Thankfully she is a seasoned wildlife rehabilitator, so she brought him back to her center and named him Derek. Other than his spine issue, Derek also had an infected wound on his back from a suspected bird attack. After she treated the wound Lynne needed to find him a temporary home where he could relax, roam freely, and stay warm. It also needed to be escape-proof and a woman named Monique had the perfect spot, her heated and enclosed greenhouse. That would be Derek’s home for the next couple of months or until he’d recovered enough to make it on his own outside.
Besides special living accommodations, Derek also received oil treatments and probiotics to boost his health. Soon his spines had started to grow back and he was much more active and happier. In fact, he managed to re-grow almost all his spines instead of just some as is common in most cases of alopecia! In the end, his swift recovery was nothing short of a miracle and while he may not ever be an outdoor hedgehog, he’ll always have a home with Lynne.
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