Hi rosiebubbles
Welcome to the Forum! It’s lovely that you are so pleased about the hog. Glad that you worked out that mealworms weren’t good but dog food should be fine.
It’s slightly surprising that there are hogs around – they often aren’t if there are lots of badgers around. Badgers are their main predator. But those hogs have obviously managed to evade them so far. If you have a wildlife friendly garden and lots of places where the hogs can find shelter from the badgers that will help, but if you are going to continue feeding it’s probably best to try to feed them in a completely badger proof place. They are probably most at risk from badgers when they are at a feeding station. A possible solution is to only feed them when you can supervise. But if the badgers become a problem i.e. start to be around when the hogs are, you might need to stop offering food – for the sake of the hogs. To be honest, if the badgers are in the habit of being in your garden I would be inclined not to offer food to the hogs.
If your garden is otherwise hog friendly they may still continue to visit even if you don’t offer food. The worry is that they may come to see the feeding area as a safe space and lower their guards whilst they are there and then they would be very vulnerable to attacks by badgers.
If you build a hog house make sure it is really strong so that the badgers could not break into it. Remember that they are used to digging (including into wood) with those strong claws. You may also need to make sure it is secured to the ground. We have heard reports on the forum of badgers picking up hog houses.
Sorry not to sound more positive, but badgers and hedgehogs aren’t an ideal mix. But hopefully you meant that the badgers are just in the vicinity and don’t visit your garden.
It sounds brilliant being a breeding place for red squirrels!
