Hello Goose
It is good to hear you have lots of hogs visiting there. Please just remember that they are wild animals. I know you want to help them, but, it is not always a good idea to get hedgehogs too used to people. Humans are predators and not all humans are necessarily nice to hedgehogs. It won’t only be your garden which they are visiting. It is really better for them, in general, if you watch from a bit of a distance and leave them to be wild hedgehogs and not interfere with their hoggy activities, even if it is fighting.
If you do feel you need to mark the hedgehogs a very small mark with water based emulsion paint is better than nail varnish – it is apparently less smelly. You can easily mark all the hogs which come to a garden without using any more than 2 small, discreet marks per hedgehog. Hedgehogs have a very strong sense of smell and nail varnish would smell very strongly to them and so not be advisable. If you are really fond of the hedgehogs, perhaps you could try to identify them from their natural markings. It is really not as difficult as it sounds and much nicer to know that you can identify them without upsetting their lives. It also means that you can identify them year after year without remarking them. Putting any foreign substance on hedgehogs is likely to be unpleasant to them. They will appear to be patient if you pick them up, but that does not mean that they do not find it stressful.
I am glad to hear the hedgehogs aren’t too bothered by all your cats. Must have been funny seeing the recycling box moving up the path!
