A HEDGEHOG began to choke to death on its own blood in a woman’s garden, raising concerns about commonly used pesticides.

Angela Crabtree had been welcoming a large family of hedgehogs into her garden in Qualitas, south Bracknell.

On Friday morning she heard a strangled cry and went outside to investigate.

There she found one of the brood in a sorry state.

“It was making a horrendous noise and had blood all over its face,” the nurse explained.

“I took it to Harper Asprey Wildlife in Windlesham and the vet there said it had been poisoned, probably by slug pellets.

“Today when I rang up she said it might also have been rat poison, which can cause internal bleeding.

“It was bleeding so badly it had to be put down. It was drowning in its own blood.”

The plight of the hedgehog underlines the unintended consequences garden poisons can have. 

Warfarin, which is also used as an oral-anticoagulant, is put down to kill rats. Its blood thinning effects can also be deadly for other small mammals however.

Hedgehog Street, a campaign that aims to protect the endangered species, gives the following advice about slug pellets: “The jury is still out on the effects that slug pellets have on hedgehogs.

“Metaldehyde is the active ingredient in most commercial slug pellets and research shows that the amount a hedgehog would need to consume to be lethal would be a very large amount either directly from eating slug pellets or poisoned slugs.

“However, there have been a few cases of dead hedgehogs being found to have had very high levels of metaldehyde in their system.

“There is also some concern, partly due to research on rats, that although the slug pellets may not kill hedgehogs they might affect their reproductive ability, having a negative effect on their population.

“All things considered, to be truly hedgehog-friendly you need to stop using slug pellets or pesticides.”

Go to www.hedgehogstreet.org to find out more.