Do hedgehogs follow old routes ?

[rosieyvonne]

Hi Nic

I have not seen any sign again except that one night i mentioned . so it seems i am having a same problem as you as i have a rat not sure if more than one ? but i’ve seen it going in and out of one of the homes and eating the food . I now think that’s why they all haven’t come if they know rats are around . I never once seen any last year on my camera and i had it out all through summer and winter . I’m not sure i want rats running around with my kids in the garden and i’m sure that’s why my hedgehogs have stopped coming .

[Nic]

Hi Yvonne

Sorry to hear no hogs again. The rat here is still around, but mostly not eating the hog food, except if there are any ‘crumbs’ left in the morning. I started putting the food out much later because it seemed to come earlier in the evening. I have also had to stop feeding the birds, though. I’m hoping if it doesn’t find any food it will go elsewhere. But one night (before I had worked out this plan) it actually jumped at a hogs face. I think some of the hogs were scared of it, but not all.

I can quite understand that you don’t want rats around, especially with children around. I think if I were you I would stop putting food out for the hogs (so that there’s no food around for the rats at all) for a while at least, until the rats disappear.

Good luck.

[rosieyvonne]

Hi Nic

yes i’m just feeding soaked meal worms to my birds so there is no mess with seeds etc left invade the rats comes , they scoff them all up with nothing left over .
I am almost scared to put my camera out now because i dot want to see what you have said a rat attacking a hoglet etc . They must have somewhere safer to go. i hope . i’m sure it won’t be just one rats so not sure if i need to catch them
hope your little rat leaves soon too , the breed fast i read so that is worrying me xx

[Nic]

Hi Yvonne

I wouldn’t worry too much about the rat jumping at a hog – I suspect the rat would come out worse when it meets with all those spines. The hog here just put up it’s spines and that was the end of that! So I would keep your camera running, otherwise you won’t know whether it’s gone, or even better if some hogs visit when you aren’t up and about to see them.

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