Hi Hedgie Lover
Sometimes some hogs hibernate later and sometimes some hogs don’t hibernate. I have found that it’s the hoglets who are around last. i.e. males disappear first, then females, then hoglets. (there may be some exceptions) The ones here who have decided not to hibernate have been hoglets – despite the fact that they were heavy enough. Last year, I had two hoglets here, fairly late, both about the same size and heavy enough – one went off to hibernate and the other didn’t. Most of the ones I hear about not hibernating are hoglets. I’m hoping someone will do some research on that to find out whether that’s fairly general or just those are the ones which get mentioned.
The hoglet who didn’t hibernate here last year is still around at the moment. It will be interesting to see whether she hibernates this year. (Although, it isn’t possible to draw conclusions about hogs in general from what one hog does.) Also she, in particular, won’t be a good example to draw any conclusions from, due to her interrupted year – she had a life threatening strimmer injury and spent months in a Wildlife Hospital who saved her life. She is also not typical in that she has no eyeshine on video, so very likely has poor eyesight (she was like that before the strimmer injury, but that would not have contributed to it). I’m not sure whether her eyesight has any impact on hibernation, we don’t know enough about the triggers for hibernation. But her eyesight has not stopped her from being nocturnal, so it may be that she can see light and dark.
