A HEDGEHOG cared for by a retired Minehead couple has been declared obese just months after being too underweight to hibernate.

White Lodge Veterinary Surgery passed him on to animal lovers Valerie and Barry Swettenham last November after he was found wrapped in a Father Christmas outfit in a garage.

They called him Garhog and put him in their conservatory where he was kept warm on a heated pad but his weakness for cat food meant he put on so much weight he could not curl into a ball.

Barry said: “He wouldn’t have survived otherwise and it’s all down to my lovely wife – she often looks after animals in need of help.

“We have taken in many hedgehogs before and normally they stop eating when they have had their fill – but this fellow just kept eating. He was an amazing chap.”

He has now been renamed Roly by staff at Secret World wildlife rescue centre near Highbridge, where he is on a strict diet after weighing in at more than 4lb – nearly two bags of sugar and twice the size of his companions.