Hi houseyhousey
Good to hear you have some hedgehogs there. It’s possible that they are two of last year’s hoglets, so may be related. Hedgehogs are normally solitary animals but sometimes the youngsters stay together for a while. If there is a lot of poo outside, I would be inclined to clear that up.
I’m guessing you’ve missed all the information on the Forum previously about mealworms. They do love them, but unfortunately, they aren’t a good thing to feed the hogs. Hedgehogs can become addicted to them and not want to eat anything else. Think of them a bit like crisps for humans. If we fill ourselves up with crisps there is no room for anything more nutritious.
But, mealworms also have an imbalance of phosphorous and calcium, which leads to an imbalance in the hogs, meaning that calcium is leached from the bones leading to all sorts of problems. It is particularly dangerous for hoglets because their bones can grow in a deformed fashion.
The best things to feed the hogs are cat, dog or hog food or cat or kitten biscuits. You might find to start with that the hogs won’t eat a new type of food, but if you stick with it, they will eat it if they are hungry. Changing to cat/dog/hog food will be doing the hogs a big favour and they will be healthier for it.
Although the food we offer the hogs is only supplementary to what they can find for themselves in the wild, my feeling is that it’s up to us to make sure that anything we offer them is as good as it can be.
Please don’t beat yourself up for not knowing about mealworms earlier. We can’t know about something until we find out about it. The important thing is what happens in the future.
It’s also important to offer access to water all day every day. Wide but shallow plant saucers are ideal. Hogs have a habit of walking through water bowls, so if they aren’t wide enough, they often get tipped over!
But making/keeping your garden wildlife friendly and easily accessible is also very important. Hogs can travel up to 2 miles a night and visit lots of different gardens. Having good access to gardens in an area can mean that there is less need for the hogs to cross roads – always a dangerous thing for hogs. More information about hog highways: https://www.hedgehogstreet.org/help-hedgehogs/link-your-garden/
Good luck to you and the hogs and happy hog watching!
