Cleaning Hoghouse

[Jackietb]

I have two hedgehog houses and four hedgehogs sleeping in them at the moment. Thursday it was one adult and one baby in each today it is one adult in one and one adult and two babies in the other. I can see how they end up as I have a camera on the boxes so can see how they go in each day.

I am t;rying to get the houses placed inside a large garden storage box I have with a tunnel to the outside as the houses I have bought have proved not to be water tight in the bad weather. Or I am even considering sectioning the storage box into three areas with wooden partitions and cutting entrance holes into each section. If I go for the first option I have problems getting the houses cleaned out and repositioned because the hogs are in them each morning when I get up and I obviously don’t want to disturb them.

Would you think I’d be OK going with my second option of partitioning off the large storage box (its one of those that you keep cushions in) the hogs would then have an option of 5 different sleeping areas they can go into. I had one hibernate here last year so I’m hoping the same might happen this year but maybe with more of them. I know the storage box will be water tight, predator proof and easily hosed out when they vacate in the spring.

[Nic]

Hi jackietb

There’s nothing to stop you converting the storage box and see what happens – that is if you no longer need it as a storage box! I would be inclined not to put the other boxes in there. Also then the hogs would have more options, if I’ve understood it right.

The thing to remember about hog houses is that to the hogs they are just structures within which they can build their hibernating nests. If they were building their nest outside, the only waterproofing would be from the nest itself. They build very intricate nests, where the leaves are sort of layered (a bit like tiles) so that in the final ‘chamber’ for the hog it would be waterproof as well as insulated to just the right amount – the hogs seem to know how to achieve this instinctively.

Make sure you leave loads of nest building material around. So, medium sized leaves, grasses, etc. They probably use far more than most of us would imagine. i.e. they would fill a whole hog house with the leaves closely layerd. When I rake the leaves off the lawn, I rake them into the borders, so that the hogs can pick them up from there.

Re. the cleaning of the houses, October is one of the recommended times, but you really need to wait until they are vacated, so I would leave them alone until no-one is in residence. Just bear in mind that there is a gap between images on the cameras, so that if one just went in to investigate, it could potentially come back out again in that time gap and vice versa.

Good luck. It will be interesting to know if the hogs take to a whole terrace of hog houses!

[Jackietb]

Hi Nic

Thank you for your reply. I have been collecting leaves from the garden and have a bucket full in the garage keeping nice and dry for when the storage box is converted. I live opposite the woods so when this dreadful rain goes away I will go over and collect a couple of bag fulls that I can scatter around the garden too, together with some fallen branches to make a log pile. My neighbours will think I’m mad they spend all their spare time crawling round their lawn removing leaves that have blown over from the woods, a rather thankless task me thinks!

If I do have a mum and two hoglets in the house I take it they will all separate at some time over the next few weeks, I can see they are with mum when they are out at night but I take it that will all stop as they grow. I would like to think they might all stay and hibernate in the garden even if they have separate houses.

I will let you know how the terrace of houses is received.

[Author]

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