I'm new to this

[Sash]

Hi all, wow am I glad I have found this site it’s so helpful. So I discovered we had a hedgehog coming out to feed in our garden ( that in itself was exciting enough) so rushed out and got food for my new friend, so every evening I put the food out and hear the crunching, anyway imagine my excitement when I realised 1 became 4!!!
Any way to help with ensuring I provide my new friends with a suitable garden can anybody tell me if cat scares are harmful to hedgehogs? We used to have one but hasn’t been working for a while but don’t want to replace it if it will harm my hedgehogs in any way.
Thank you for reading my long post ( posts will get shorter when excitement passes)
Sash

[Williamc]

Do you mean those ultrasonic cat scarers? I only found them to work on *some* cats anyway, overall I didn’t find them that effective. You would be better providing a cat-proof feeding station for the hogs (lots of pics ideas and designs round this forum) so that the pesky things can’t steal the hedgehog food.

Cats don’t particularly bother hogs otherwise although I do just detest having the blasted things come in my garden anyway. I saw one touch a hog once and let”s just say it didn’t try doing that again!

After years of trying I’ve never found a proper and effective way of keeping cats away. However my hogs are perfectly happy with their cat-proof diner!

By the way, re hedgehogs, welcome to your new addiction! You have now joined our Hogaholic support group.

[DarkPassenger 78]

Hey , I have a cat and she doesn’t bother the wee hoggys at all which is nice. Welcome to hog land it’s great place to be 😀

[Sash]

Thank you for replying, yes I think I will just give up trying to get rid of the cats. At least I know they won’t bother my little Hogs 👍, will be setting up a cat proof feeding station too.

[Nic]

Hi Sash

Welcome to the Forum.

I wouldn’t want to use one of those cat scarers with hogs around. Some retailers may claim they don’t effect hogs, but in reality they don’t really know. Likewise with rodent scarers. I put a rodent scarer out during the daytimes for a short while when I had a rat visiting, to see if it worked. I tried to be careful to take it in every evening before the hogs arrived, but once a hog got here early, before I took it in. I saw the hog visibly flinch as it passed the rodent scarer. So needless to say, it was no longer used outside after that.

Good luck with feeding station. I have found over the years, that some hogs just don’t like going into boxes so I have some perspex type sheet on earth filled flower pots with bricks on top to stop it being pushed up/blown away. The hogs consider this to be still outside, it keeps the rain off the food, and seems to work better than the boxes I have tried. The sheet does need to be quite large to deter the cats, though. But it’s easily moved out of the way during the day and you can see the hogs through it.

Hope all goes well with the hogs.

[Jens]

I have once made sounds that are loud in both audible for human and ultrasound to try to scare a hedgehog on a feeding place.

It was because someone had an idea to put ultra or infrasonic sound on robomowers to make hedgehogs move away.

From using a ultrasound detektor for bats I know that blowing sounds with hard pressed lips as well as key shaking makes a lot of ultrasound.

It made the hedgehog almost curl up, but anyway it ended up walking towards me.

That makes me believe that ultrasound wouldn’t deter a hedgehog.

[Nic]

If the hedgehog almost curled up, it must have upsest it, Jens. So it might deter a hedgehog from visiting someone’s garden, if not away from a robo-mower. (if someone used a cat scarer) I personally wouldn’t want to use something which would upset the hedgehogs.

I can see what you are trying to do, to find something to keep hogs away from, for instance the robo-mowers to protect them. The problem for hedgehogs is that their natural defence is to roll up rather than to run away, so it seems unlikely that you would scare them away like that. It seems to me the only solution to the robo mower problem must be the construction of the bodywork of the actual mower. Maybe they could be built in such a way that they pushed any hedgehog out of the way without it being able to make any contact with the blades. There must be someone who could design such a thing.

[Author]

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