Hi Magicshaz
I can’t remember whether or not you have a night cam, but if you do, it’s sometimes possible to see underneath the hogs, or if you see them scratch in front of the camera, a ‘blob’ mid abdomen indicates a male.
Otherwise it requires a certain amount of observation and then it can become clear which ones are male and which female. I would stress, though that only one episode of behaviour should not be taken as a definite indication. But if the same hog repeatedly behaves like a female or male, it is likely they are.
So males are the ones which tend to rush around looking for females and when they find them they start circling around them. The female initially will usually reverse on the approach of a male and ‘jiggle’ her feet up and down – huffing at the same time but at a fairly constant rythm. If he continues showing interest, as he circles around her, she turns round, so that her face is facing towards the front of him. This is the normal ‘courtship’ for hogs and can continue for hours.
Other characteristics of males are that they are more likely to biff and roll up another male. Females will occasionally give grumpy biffs and nudges out of the way, but in my experience don’t show the same aggression as the males. Also, in my experience, a male is unlikely to roll up a female – other than possibly a youngster – and possibly by mistake.
It does require a certain amount of observation, but collectively with the different behaviours it is possible to be fairly certain whether male or female. You do, of course, need to recognise the individual hedgehogs in the first place, but it is possible to do that from their natural markings.
Age is not so easy. In general, the really big ones are likely to be older than the smaller ones. But, as with humans, some hogs just never get as big as some other hogs. Some female hogs can be larger than some male hogs, although I have found, here, that the really large hogs usually turn out to be males – but females can be pretty big, too. So size is not really a reliable indicator of male/female, or age.
Hope that helps!
