Hedgehog house

[Nicwik]

Hi, I recently placed a hedgehog house and feeding station in my garden. This was due to seeing numerous hedgehogs over the past few years on my estate and in my back garden. When I placed the hedgehog house I didn’t know lots about them and didn’t realise it would be in full sun where it is. The problem I have now is that I have a hedgehog nesting in the box and could possibly have babies in there. It comes for food each evening and looks healthy. My concern is I now cannot move the house and worried the poor thing will die of heat stroke. I have even put a parasol out today to shade the hedgehog house. Can anyone suggest anything I could do as I’m presuming you can’t move a house while it has a resident?
Thanks
Nicola

[alanfrew]

My simplistic thought would be that if the hog was uncomfortable in its residence that it would move. Last year I had a mother move her 5 hoglets into one of my Hog houses. Presumably the hoglets were born in another nest/home somewhere in the area but the mother came across a vacant house and spent the next few months raising her young there. I have five purpose built houses and currently two of them are occupied. I am hoping that the others will be filled following the breeding season, but who knows. Maybe they might prefer a home built by themselves under some scrub vegetation. At the end of the day they are not relying on you to provide them a home and they will either take up residence that suits them and leave if they are not comfortable. Just my opinion of course.

[Nic]

Hi Nicola

I love that you have been using a parasol to shelter the hog house! I had a similar problem a while back where a hog took up residence in a food box which was in full sun during the day. I used to put a plastic table over it to shelter it from the sun, but luckily the hog didn’t stay for long.

I think alanfrew is right, the hog will move if it doesn’t like it, or possibly, if it’s a male, just because they are inclined to move sleeping places more often. I would leave it until you are sure it has been vacated and then move it to a more suitable location. But if it was me, I would continue to try to shade it from the sun on very hot days, if you can.

Also, make sure you always leave a supply of water – all day every day – preferably in the shade. So the hog can at least get a drink if it gets hot.

You could of course get another hog house, so that the hog has the option to move into that.

Good luck.

[Author]

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