Hi Nic
This is a strange place, I already replied to your posting above a while ago but I can see it’s disappeared.
How exciting seeing a female hoglet, hoping she’s been back in the weeks since you saw her & more besides.
My visiting red rat reappeared & when I set up the camera to see what was going on it was next to the nest box each time it appeared so I cautiously removed the box to check inside only to find the newspaper lining I’ve always used & the hay absolutely saturated in stinking pee & utterly revolting. Hedgehogs don’t pee like that, it’s always quite dry when they use it & their pee doesn’t stink either. Emptied & scrubbed it but the base was falling to bits with the pee – some sort of particle board – so it’s gone & sadly so has the nest box as the walls were affected at the bottom too. No wonder no hog has used it since hibernating in it during winter. My inclination is not to replace the nestbox which is a shame. I don’t want to give a rat a cosy home again. I’ll continue to feed year round in my large hog feeder though as I’ve not seen the rat or any signs of rat poo in it at any time.
I’ve given my smaller hog feeding box to a friend as she now has hogs visiting too.
There are daily visits to the feeder, lots of muddy paw marks on the lino floor under the food & water dishes most days & loads of mud in the water dishes placed in the entrance hallways to deter cats. My hogs must leave after eating with the cleanest paws in the neighbourhood.
I’ve had the rotten picket fencing replaced across the width of my little front garden & I had the wrought iron replacement made with a custom made entry hole 5″ x 5″ next to the gate for the hogs. I know they can probably get through the fence uprights but they’d have to go up over the bottom bar & I wanted to make it easy for them & any little ones also wanted a hole near where their previous hole was at the bottom of the old gate. Judging by the huffing hubby heard last night it’s been a success.
They have another hole further down the existing side fence but traditionally that’s always been the exit for some reason with the gate hole being the entry!
Hope you continue to have butterflies, bees, hogs & birds visiting.
