sorry I’m late to this conversation – and I hope you managed to get the hog to a hog hospital/carer.
I just want to comment on something you said re the water – you asked if you should leave the water in or outside of the feeding station.
I think it’s probably best, and many people do this, to leave little dishes around your garden, some with stones in (for the bees).
What I have done though, is I’ve got a very shallow gravel tray, which I managed to find flat rectangular stones (on my travels), which has made a nice line of steps so it’s easy for them to climb out – which they sometimes use – but more often then not they tend to put their front paws on the stone and have a lick rather than jump in. However, it has become very popular with the birds, and they have a lot of fun taking turns to get baths and drink during the day.
So, and I have always done this before I had the gravel tray, I have got a water dish from Ark Wildlife (sold as a hedgehog water dish) – which I used to put outside of the feeding station, but what often happens is that a bird will poo in it. So now, I got another plastic storage box, cut one side, and have joined it onto the existing feeding station – so it now looks like a L shape, and the second box has created a tunnel. and I now put the water dish in there- which the hogs have always preferred drinking out of that – and it’s just tap water – they get a clean (sort of sterilised bowl) each day with fresh water (but it’s not necessary to sterilise – I’m just happy to do that each day).
So the water stays clean, I also dug out the soil a bit so that the bowl is lower down, so smaller hogs can reach in. and also put it in the corner of the 2nd feeding station, so they tend not to walk through it – but sometimes they get pushed into it by another hog.
The 2nd box made quite a narrow tunnel, however, I’ve kept the entrance to the 2nd box 4 inches wide but have now extended it out a bit, so it’s a lot wider when they get in, and then they have to go through a 4inch hole to get to the 1st feeding station to get to the food – which has made it cat and fox proof.
A fox was repeatedly trying to get to the food a month ago but has given up after not being successful.
