In order to thrive a baby needs to know that it is safe and loved and this also applies to the animal kingdom.
When a baby animal loses its mother it can develop psychological wounds that never really heal.
After 8 baby hedgehogs lost their mother they refused to eat and were fading fast.
Their mother was the victim of a lawn-mowing accident, according to the BBC and a zoo in Russia took them in, but the kindness of the staff wasn’t enough to help them recover.
Staff tried to feed the orphaned hoglets with milk from a syringe, a bottle, and a saucer for two days, according to Sadgorod Zoo.
They even put heat pads on their stomachs at night to help stimulate their digestion but still they refused to eat.
They reached critical point when Muska the cat was brought in. She had just fed a litter of foster kittens so had milk left over.
As soon as this big-hearted cat got close to the hedgehogs they started to feed.
The warmth and the smell of milk helped the hedgehogs to heal from their traumatic experience and these two very different animals accepted each other as their own.
It wasn’t long before this sweet spikey brood were feeding on their own, still under the protective eye of Muska the momma cat.
Watch this beautiful group in action in the clip below.
This sweet cat’s maternal instinct has no boundaries, what a super momma she is.
Please share with all the cat (and hedgehog) lovers you know.
