Hi Locket
Pleased to hear that a hedgehog has taken up residence in your garden. It’s not always easy to tell without seeing them, but the two hogs standing nose to nose may have been involved in part of the ‘courtship’ procedure. I normally think of the noise as being rather more like huffing than grunting. Does that fit in with what you heard, at all?
Re. the food. That is always a difficult question, because, as you suggest what we feed should be supplemental. This year has been a strange year, weatherwise, so that I started leaving food out all night, but previously I made a habit of only leaving the food out whilst I was up to watch (i.e. 2 -3 hours). This gave them the option to eat the food on offer but also the rest of the night to forage. The hogs did very well on that regime and the population visiting remained stable. I have discovered that the hogs really don’t seem to eat any more now that I’m leaving it out all night. The only difference is that they seemed to know, before, that it was only there for a short time and timed their visits accordingly. That made it much easier to keep an eye on them all. But, I think most people probably just leave food out all night. I think if all the food you are leaving out is gone, then you probably aren’t leaving too much.
If you are concerned about the hedgehog not getting enough natural food, you might like to make some hog friendly improvements to your garden and might find some helpful tips in the following:
https://www.hedgehogstreet.org/help-hedgehogs/helpful-garden-features/
The other really important thing is to link gardens by making holes under fences/walls:
https://www.hedgehogstreet.org/help-hedgehogs/link-your-garden/
Good luck.
