Hi Leighw,
That sounds a bit extreme, especially for wild hedgehogs who encounter all sorts of bacteria and so on all the time, use each other’s nests and eat goodness knows what. I guess if you know there’s a sickness going round, or if you’re caring for vulnerable hogs in a rescue, you might need to be more careful about hygiene, but I think most of us just wash by hand as you describe, or put the dishes in the dishwasher. Anyone know if we should be doing more?
If you want to sterilise the dishes to make sure, I wouldn’t use bleach or chemicals, just in case there’s any left over that the hogs can ingest. Boiling water should kill any bacteria, and wouldn’t leave any harmful residue. But I would have thought that just washing is fine for the most part- it’s good enough for you and the dogs after all.
