Hi Array
No definitely don’t interfere at all. When males biff each other it looks a bit rough, but remember that the hogs have all those spines to cushion them. But if you interfered any fight might just become even worse, out of sight. It really isn’t a good idea to interfere with any natural behaviour of wild animals.
Hedgehogs are normally solitary animals and we are, in effect, encouraging them to congregate by providing them with food. Normally other than male and female, their meetings would just be in passing. One, more dominant male, may not like another in his personal space, so might biff him. But when they are gathered together it probably happens more often – and also if there is a female around.
If they were a family, it is likely to be only by chance. Hedgehogs don’t stay in family units, other than a mother when she has young hoglets. The Father has nothing to do with the raising of the hoglets and probably doesn’t even recognise his own offspring. Not surprising when females will apparently mate with more than one male and some litters have even apparently been found to have more than one Father.
The ‘courtship’ is quite noisy with the female continuously huffing, rhythmically, as the male circles round her. (some people think she sounds grumpy) She turns as he goes round. This can go on for hours. It is quite different from the biffing amongst the males when one of them is likely to be rolled up. The female will occasionally give a male a small biff, but, in my experience, not so much that he rolls up. He might nudge her, now and then but this doesn’t look at all aggressive.
Difficult to tell from such a short description, what was happening in this case, but hope that gives you a better idea.
