Martin Brown writes


Yuck. I had expected ticks to be smaller, round and much darker in
colour.

Unless you know what they are, they give a good impression of being a
bit of the body they're attached to.

Biggest one was nearly 1cm across. But on closer inspection it seems
they were ticks, but bigger by far than any that I have seen before
close up. I was surprised that they looked light grey and elongated
despite presumably being full of blood.

They're quite tough, but with a good blood-carrying capacity, so they
need to be flexible (stretchy), so my guess is that they're made of
quite thick skin, so you wouldn't see the blood through it.

Sitting out in daylight is sign of sickness in hedgehogs, it's abnormal
behaviour. Often if you take one to a 'hedgehog hospital' you find it
has expired a few days later with respiratory disease.

I reckon "respiratory failure" is what they say when they don't really
know.
Did it die because it stopped breathing or stop breathing because it
died...

They wheeze for a couple of days before dying, apparently.

There's a dramatic exodus of fleas when the hedgehog actually dies -
presumably just after as it begins to cool.
--
Kay