Thank you Nic for your helpful comments. Indeed I had come to the same conclusion over the dampness issue myself that it would be hard for a hedgehog to exclude the wet and the cold entirely in our climate.
I am still a bit confused over how to separate the eating and sleeping arrangements. I agree that that the ‘igloo’ house is not at all ideal when they are sleeping in it with having to lift it, though I have now managed to do it very quickly by lifting the edge and put in a very small dish away from where the hay is to do my best to alleviate the issue for this winter. I did lift it quickly yesterday and the hog had woken up and was sitting in there with eyes open for the first time, having previously been fast asleep deep in the hay. Someone was cutting down trees locally and I think the noise may have disturbed him.
I guess the igloos are intended for hibernating – hadn’t realised that when I bought it. It seemed to work very well for feeding and cats can’t get in it and so far no sign of rats or squirrels having gone in. The bought boxes are very expensive, at £40ish, so I didn’t want to buy one first in until I was sure that the hedgehog would stay around and with the rain we have here, feeding outside seems an impossible idea – food would get wet the whole time. I am not really capable of making anything – no car so hard to buy the right materials and just not very handy at this kind of thing.
What is an underbed store please?
