New neighbour next door has three cats!!

[shinamae]

She is a lovely neighbour but her cats should be on lockdown really they should!! I have been putting my hedgehog food out as usual but twice I have found her cat actually in my hedgehog house eating the food it’s one I’ve made myself, they also climb on my bird table and eat the suet pellets I put out I don’t want to fall out with the neighbour as she is lovely but I’m at my wits end about these darn cats! When I find out how I will upload a picture of a hedgehog in my feed in the house last year

[shinamae]

Ps I have tried putting out just mealworms and the dam cat will even eat those and they are dried and the other food is hedgehog food 😬

[Nic]

Hi shinamae

I can sympathise! There is one cat here, who can get into just about anything. One of the best things I have found is a fairly large sheet of perspex balanced on earth filled flower pots. As low as a hog can fit under. I think it was 2 litre pots. Most cats don’t want to have to crawl on their bellies, but that one sometimes did.

But I also tried putting bricks in the tunnels of the hog houses to reduce the height. That was on the basis that maybe the cats could squeeze one way or the other but not both at once. That also worked, but the cat referred to wasn’t around then. The hogs managed to negotiate it without any problems.

But please don’t feed the hogs mealworms. They aren’t good for them due to a not good ratio of phosphorous and calcium and cause bone problems. So best avoided for hogs completely.

Perhaps your neighbour could be persuaded to keep the cats in at night. Night is a dangerous time for cats anyway. Although I suppose that would still leave the suet pellet problem!

Good luck, I hope you manage to solve the problem one way or the other.

p.s. you can put images on here if they are already elsewhere on the internet with a link. Or there is some information here in case you haven’t seen it: https://www.hedgehogstreet.org/photographing-hedgehogs/

[shinamae]

Thank you Nic.Still can’t see a link on this page to add a photo to my message I did click on that link but not sure how to add it to this actual message. As we have hogs at the front garden as well I put out water last night and a few pelllets of hog food just sprinkled around the dish as hopefully the cats would not pick up individual pieces of hedgehog food, anyway I went out this morning and it looks like some of the water has gone and quite a bit of the hedgehog food. I don’t know for sure,I did have a wildlife camera a couple years ago but could not get on with it at all anyway I will keep you posted and thanks again for your help oh by the way I spoke to the lady at the hedgehog rescue centre and she said that Mealworms were like cocaine to hedgehogs!! But that it was okay to mix a few in with the hedgehog food.

The reason I did put it Was just to see if the cats would come for it if it was mealworms only and I’ve looked this morning and amount of worms are still there and the water doesn’t look as though it’s been in touch so unfortunate at my back garden for whatever reason I just don’t think I’m getting hogs at the moment 😕 No signs of the little trademarks left behind but I shall keep it going. I did a couple of years ago cut holes in both sides of my fences so they have got access but whether next doors three cats would put them off I don’t know thank you and I might ask Julie if she can keep them in at night but as I said before I don’t wanna fall out with her I don’t think she would take offence anyway will post again. And thank you again Nic🦔

[Bushsnuffler]

Hi shinamae
Unfortunately cats are just something you have to live with in suburban environments really, you could ask your neighbour to keep them in but as you say that request may not go down too well and there is no guarantee other cats won’t come along at some point.

I don’t know the design of your hedgehog house but the trick really is getting the entrance hole just the right size and if possible using a piece of pipe at the entrance to make a tunnel that is either too narrow or too long for a cat to fit down.

Here is one I made from a plant pot with the bottom cut out…..

https://youtu.be/CYZLXpihEn4

[Bushsnuffler]

As you can see the cat still fits through so I elongated the tunnel as you can see in the 3rd version on this short video….

https://youtu.be/MrgCGMWjmr0

[Bushsnuffler]

This now prevents the cats getting in. The entrance is 12 cm but tapers slightly because it’s a plant pot, I think some cats could probably still get in but the length of pipe means they are reluctant to as they would have to go all the way in and maybe not be able to get out. I would suggest pipe somewhere between 10 – 12 cm but no more or less than that.

Unfortunately this forum does not appear to support image uploads from your own computer, you need to have an account with an image sharing website like YouTube, Flickr etc. It’s really easy to set up an account then you can just select SHARE > right click in your post here > select PASTE and the link will appear to your photo or it will embed it also as in my post above. Or you can just copy/paste from the browser address bar. If you need any more help just ask

[Nic]

Hi shinamae

re. mealworms. What some people don’t take into account is how many mealworms the hogs are eating at different places they visit. Potentially they could just go round picking out all the mealworms. It’s a bit different if they are confined. There are some things available these days called calci-worms which, if fed decently, have a higher level of calcium, which some people are trying as an alternatives to mealworms. You just need to check that the calcium levels are higher than the phosphorous. Hopefully, it will be written on the packaging. But, I would still only use those as a ‘garnish’, but they may help to deter the cats from eating the hog food.

There isn’t a link on this page to add a photo, but if you have images/video somewhere else on the internet, which will have it’s own link, you can put that link on here. But you don’t need to set up an account, if you don’t want to. If you look through the information in that link I gave you previously, it tells you how you can get video put on Hedgehog Street’s YouTube. You can also put photos on the Hedgehog Street Gallery via Hedgehog Street Home Page.

Sorry to hear there are no hogs at the moment. I doubt whether it’s the cats putting them off. Normally it’s the cats that will give way to a hog! Fingers crossed some will appear soon.

[shinamae]

Thank you both for your very good advice and Bush snuffled My home-made hog feeding station is practically the same as yours I have it up against the ledge outside the French window at the moment with two heavy slates on top of it and also I have put an old laying down garden gnome in with the food to make it harder for the cat to get in, (that just doesn’t sound right does it 😂) The gnome takes up quite a bit of space but hopefully the hog will still be able to get in but as I say I am not getting any I don’t think in my back garden at the moment it is a wild garden and I have a wildlife pond that has frogs, and there is an escape if the hog decided to drink from it but I always put a fresh water out anyway I’ve put the water front and back garden. I shall definitely try something with old flowerpots as well….. Thanks again for some marvellous advice will keep you posted but I am really not that technical minded to go through all that for putting a photo on you really would think they would be able to have a little link on here never mind….🦔🐸

[Author]

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