Arbuckle the hedgehog from Scotland was recently put on a diet after he was named as the heaviest hedgehog in the country. The New Arc Animal Rescue Center in Aberdeenshire recently received the overweight marsupial and they announced that Arbuckle needed to cut down on his eating so that he could lose weight.
Arbuckle was brought into the rescue center by a civilian last year so that he could be taken care of properly. The man took in the hedgehog for the harsh winter, but he noticed that once it got warm enough, the hedgehog wouldn’t leave his home. In all likeliness, Arbuckle must have stayed because he was well fed and taken care of.
“Arbuckle weighed in at a massive 2.335 kilos (just over 5 pounds), which might well make him Scotland’s heaviest-ever hedgehog, if not the U.K.’s. At roughly 4 times the weight of an average hedgehog for this time of year,” wrote the animal rescue center on their social media page. His weight made him almost double the size of the average hedgehog.
“Arbuckle can hardly walk and is unable to curl into a defensive ‘ball’ so needs to go on a diet if he is to have any chance of surviving in the wild,” said the rescue facility “This will have to be a gradual process and we can only hope that his internal organs and bone structure can adapt and that any damage done is reversible.” The animal center is also hoping to get Arbuckle some exercise by spreading the food all over his enclosure.
