Hi Annie
I saw Digger arrive the other evening (she was half an hour early and I was still doing hog preparations) and she didn’t have any hoglets in tow. Probably a bit early for that anyway. She was here eating (in total) quite a long time tonight. The first visit was about 20 minutes then she went back to her, here 2 minutes, gone 2 minutes. I wonder what she is up to in between. The camera half way down the garden, more often than not just catches a hog arriving, just about to disappear out of view, or the back view of a hog leaving. (Nearly always using the path!) So doesn’t throw a huge amount of light on what is happening elsewhere.
Sorry to hear the phone cam isn’t working out any more. My cams seem to be decidely dodgy. They never seem to capture the bits I am hoping they will! Is Patch one of last year’s hoglets? One of the last year’s hoglets here is very keen on slinking along very low and often goes right underneath one of the hog boxes – he is a boy, so maybe hoping the big boys won’t see him! It is set on some smallish bricks, so quite low. You mentioning the poo, made me realise that my hog visitors have been behaving very well in that respect lately.
I read that hogs probably don’t breed in the wild until they are 9 – 12 months old. So as Erin and Aceus were late hoglets, it seems unlikely that they will breed this year. I have wondered whether over-wintering late hoglets might be a self-perpetuating thing, if the late hoglets then end up having late hoglets. Erin and Aceus certainly seem quite happy to indulge in a bit of courtship ‘dancing’, but some of the big boys aren’t really very interested in them and either ignore them or give up quite quickly.
Sounds like you’ve got a good system to deter the cats. One of my hog boxes has quite a good entrance and, as yet, I haven’t seen a cat trying to get in there on the cam. I usually put the remains of any food in there.
The cucumber thing sounds interesting. The only trouble is, if they really do like it, slugs might smell it and come from all around! They certainly seem to smell the hog food, particularly if it is a wet night.
