Parent living next door to hoglets
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Hi,
This year we put out two houses for hedgehogs that we saw briefly in the garden. As soon as we put out the houses and a bag of straw nearby they took up residence. Literally that night!!
Our question is that the adult hedgehog is living in one house while three smaller hoglets are living in the house next door. Although the three hoglets are youngsters they are looking very healthy and certainly love the food we put out each night. Via our wildlife cameras we can also see them all wondering around our gardens eating grubs etc. Back to the question – is it normal for three hoglets to all live together? They seem very content and have certainly stuffed the house full of straw and leaves. The adult next door doesn’t seem to have anything to do with them.Hi Chelsea Girl
Sounds like your hog houses got a definite seal of approval! It’s really important to provide potential nesting material, as you did, to encourage them to use houses more quickly.
It isn’t unusual for hoglets to share when they are small, but they tend to reduce to one per house when they get bigger. However, hogs seem to like to keep us guessing and I had two huge male hogs share for a short while! That is more unusual, though.
The adult hog next door may or may not be mother of the hoglets. But there comes a time when a mother hog leaves her young ones to go it alone so that she can concentrate on putting on weight for herself, ready for hibernation. From birth to independence the young ones grow a huge amount and it takes a lot from Mother hog to rear them successfully. So she has a lot of condition to make up.
I hope the hog and hoglets continue to do well. Good luck and happy hog watching!
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