Cleaning of feeding bowls
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I feed the local hedgehogs every night on my drive, I know this is not ideal but having two terriers I thought it might be the safer option for the hogs.
I currently wash their bowls in warm soapy water after washing our dishes followed by the dogs dishes then the hogs dishes.
I recently read somewhere that Milton should be used to prevent spread of infection when multiple hogs feed from the same bowl but it did not give the dilution or method, now I can’t find it again, any advice would be welcome please.Hi Leighw,
That sounds a bit extreme, especially for wild hedgehogs who encounter all sorts of bacteria and so on all the time, use each other’s nests and eat goodness knows what. I guess if you know there’s a sickness going round, or if you’re caring for vulnerable hogs in a rescue, you might need to be more careful about hygiene, but I think most of us just wash by hand as you describe, or put the dishes in the dishwasher. Anyone know if we should be doing more?
If you want to sterilise the dishes to make sure, I wouldn’t use bleach or chemicals, just in case there’s any left over that the hogs can ingest. Boiling water should kill any bacteria, and wouldn’t leave any harmful residue. But I would have thought that just washing is fine for the most part- it’s good enough for you and the dogs after all.
Hi Kitty878
Thank you for your reply, that had been my thinking but having seen this somewhere I was then a bit worried that I was helping to spread disease and that’s the last thing I would want to do or that they need.
It did say not to use bleach or disinfectant that makes the water cloudy (Dettol type) but I really can’t remember where I saw it, think it was something to do with coccidiosis? if that’s how you spell it! Then I thought if it doesn’t hurt babies…….so I thought I’d ask on here.
Thanks againHi leighw
You are absolutely right – it is good practice to clean the hog bowls daily. Whilst hogs may encounter all sorts of bacteria, etc. naturally, they do not normally, either gather in such numbers as we encourage by feeding, nor eat from the same dishes. So if there were any infections around they would likely spread more easily.
So well done keeping on top of the hygiene. But hot soapy water well rinsed should be ok for general purposes.
Good luck. Hope you continue to enjoy the hogs’ visits. Happy hog watching!
I wash my Hedgehog bowls every day in hot soapy water. I use a seperate cleaning sponge which I keep only for the hedgehog bowls. I then wipe them dry with paper roll and fill them with yummy food.
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