Hi TyburyDuck,
I am in the same boat. The last lodger in one of our houses was a male and he vacated it about a week ago. I am pretty sure that he must have had a few lodgers of his own, as he was caught on camera constantly going in and out of the house scratching. I know hedgehogs do scratch A LOT, but this was to the extreme! I am very keen to clean it out, as I wouldn’t want any strays finding a new host, but I also wouldn’t want to risk disturbing a nursing mum. There has been nothing captured on the camera and the sticks in the entrance haven’t moved for over a week, so I am fairly confident it is empty, but shall be very cautious all the same.
As for the food, I think that there is plenty of their natural food around at the moment, especially with all the rain that we have had lately. Interestingly enough, one of our neighbour’s had a new fence put up at the weekend. Their old fence was very hedgehog friendly, but on the night that the new one went up the food was barely touched. Last night it was nearly all gone, so they must have found a new route…it just goes to show how one new fence can make a big difference.
