Could anyone age these hoglets ?
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The photo in this link was taken in 2017 on July 10th (or possibly a or two day before).
I think (Or maybe “hope” would be a better word !) that Mum from last year is back in residence (although the in-house camera shows that there are still some days when the house is unoccupied), and so I’m trying to get a feel for when she might conceive, and when any hoglets may be born. One way to do this would be the use last years events to backtrack. I understand hog pregnancies are about 35-40 days, so if I knew the approximate age of the hoglets when I took the above photo, I would have a rough idea about when they were born and thus when they were conceived.
A second question: I am thinking that once a hog is pregnant, they find a permanent nest site, or do they continue to wander after that (I assume that much of the absences is due to finding a mate?)
Hi Phil1
My feeling is that you are being a bit too optimistic hoping that hogs are that easy to predict! I think there are just too many variables and that it would be a complete coincidence if they followed the same pattern two years running.
They don’t normally disappear to find a mate. The courtship seems to go on in full glare of publicity although they do usually seem to disappear into the undergrowth before mating happens. The attempted mounting often seen by some young male hogs is not mating. A bit more finesse is required. Seeing a courtship is no guarantee of a pregnancy either and apparently one litter of hoglets can have more than one Father. The following is a quote from ‘Hedgehogs’ by Pat Morris.
” … conception falls well short of a sure-fire certainty. Many females still fail to become pregnant, even after several matings, and a fair proportion may escape becoming pregnant altogether. ….”
All in all, I think you are going to have to wait to see what happens!
The females do tend to disappear when the young are born. I imagine not wanting to leave them untended when they are tiny. I don’t know at what stage they choose/make their nest, but would imagine they would do it towards the end of their pregnancy(?).
Fingers crossed that the Mum hog there will produce youngsters at some stage this year and that you can enjoy watching more hoglets.
My new blog post (with video clips)
She is definitely still in there: I’ve seen the straw and leaves twitching and the fact that she’s closed off the entrance can only really mean one thing, I think: hoglets are arriving!
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