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For the past week I have sighted a hedgehog who has made itself comfortable in the den I made at the bottom of my garden in the undergrowth. Almost every night about 10 pm he/she passes my garage and goes through the hole in the fence into next door neighbours garden. Then I have sighted him/her early in the morning coming back on the same route heading for the den. Does anyone know if this is a regular habit of theirs, because I have not seen this before, and I’m guessing he/she wont stay around for long and eventually go their own way.
Berty,
I’ve had Hog’s create a path around the edge of my lawn towards some bushes. This happened in slightly wetter months, when it wasn’t possible to mow the lawn…Then, they just disappeared for well over 4 months…
I do believe though, that they are creatures of habit, once they find somewhere they like…they tend to follow the same/safe path they feel they have found..Hi Berty
Glad to hear your den is being used! It sounds quite normal behaviour to me. We like to think the hogs live in our gardens, but in fact they need several gardens to survive and it sounds as if the hog there is just going on his/her nightly rambles. You are just lucky that it is coming back to your garden to sleep. I am fairly sure that none of the hogs who visit my garden are actually residing here, other than occasional short stays, but many of them still visit regularly. Some even seem to have their own ‘clocks’!
It is quite possible that the hog will move on after a while. That is normal behaviour as well, probably to help avoid collecting too many parasites in their sleeping place. But it doesn’t mean it will stop visiting your garden and it also doesn’t mean another one might not move in.
It is obviously a vote of approval anyway!
Hello Paul and Nic. I’m going to try and make a habit this week to stay up late and get up early to see if I can discover more about my spiky resident. Hopefully I’ll be able to keep you informed of events as and if they happen.
We have 3 hedgehogs visiting us every night approximately at the same time like they have internal alarm clocks. I can’t see where they are coming from they just appear. We have been putting dog food and mealworms out for them every night. We have set up cameras so we can watch them but we are also attracting foxes and are very worried they might kill the hogs.
I now have have four hedgehogs that visit my garden every night to feed, probably due to my putting food out for them. They do fight quite a lot though which really worries me. I put out 4 individual saucers of food plus one with water but they still seem to fight.
Hi Stewarty
I can understand you being worried about the foxes, especially as there has been a report recently on the forum of hogs being killed by one. One thing you can do is to make sure that where the hogs eat is well protected so that the foxes can’t get to them when their attention is taken by eating. Also that they have a reasonably safe access/escape route from there into suitable cover.
On a completely different subject. It is best not to feed mealworms, especially at this time of year when there may be new hoglets appearing. They have poor nutritional content for hogs and they can become addicted to them and not want to eat anything else, including their natural ‘wild’ food. You may also have heard about the problems with mealworms and metabolic bone disease where the calcium is leached from the bones causing deformities. So all in all, it’s best not to feed them.
Good luck with the fox dilemma. Part of the problem, as I see it, is that a lot of our wildlife is moving into more built up areas (or more built up areas are surrounding them) and therefore they are competing with each other in closer proximity. One solution is to improve habitat, for all species, in our gardens and of course, from the hedgehogs point of view, in particular, linking the gardens to increase the size of the habitat.
Hi Anne
It’s good to hear you have four hogs visiting. I wouldn’t worry too much about the hogs fighting, it’s what male hogs do and they don’t seem to come to much harm from it, even though it sometimes looks quite ferocious. I don’t think it is necessarily to do with the food and how many dishes you put out. I find that the hogs, here, will often move from bowl to bowl anyway. Some males are just intolerant of having any other males around who aren’t rolled up! Even spreading the dishes further apart doesn’t seem to work. They seem to have some sort of radar to detect other males in the vicinity. Some even seem to ‘patrol’ the area, possibly looking for females, but I always suspect they are also making sure there is no competition around!
Good luck to you and the hogs.
We have had problems with a fox cub who actually got into the hedgehog house so we have now built a tunnel leading to the hedgehog house which the fox couldn’t get into so he hasn’t been seen again. Thankfully no damage caused!
We have now built a separate enclosed feeding station and have visitors between 10 pm and 4am. I can’t tell if they are the same hogs though.
Can I just ask if we should put water in the feeding station as well. We have been leaving it out as they sometimes tip it over but as they spend such a huge amount of time drinking I am worried they are not safe. The water bowls are close to the hog house and feeding station.
ThanksHi simbo65,
Yes, I would leave some water in the feeding box as well if there is room. They are terrors at tipping the water over! If you can, try to get a dish with a flat bottom and shallow straight sides, that way they are less likely to tip it over. They will still probably walk through it though!
I thought cats were bad enough at getting into feed boxes. Never heard of a fox getting in one before! It is best to have a tunnel, either internal with ‘baffles’ or external to help avoid unwanted ‘guests’ – as you have done. Let’s hope the fox stays away.
Hi Nic.
The house has an internal tunnel. It’s an Ark superdooper model.
If I can work out how to send a video I will send the footage.
Moving the water too
ThanksBearing in mind a cat got into one of my boxes with a double internal passage with a brick in to make it shallower, I don’t know why I was surprised a fox cub managed!!
I would leave some water outside too, in case, if you haven’t anyway for birds, etc. I find here, that certain hogs don’t go in the boxes and especially with the dry weather as much water around outside the better. I have water places both ends of the garden and a tiny pond. Not a large garden, but I don’t think you can leave too much water out, and 24 hours a day, in case. I use mostly plant saucers outside about 10 inches/25 cm. wide or more, some near to cover so if a hog is out in the daytime it wouldn’t need to go far out of cover to get a drink.
Hi Berty,
I remember a couple of weeks ago you were looking for hints and tips on where to locate your hog house – would I be right in assuming your efforts are paying off, based on your original posting above? or are they ignoring your hog house and simply going for undergrowth?
I think in the hot weather they do seem to prefer sleeping outside – understandably – although the females do like a house for a little more protection when they are nest building to have their young, at least for the first week or two.
On the feeding front – I agree absolutely on the mealworms as above – but it may also be that the wet food is attracting foxes and potentially others. Wet food is also great for going off very quickly and attracting flies, which lay eggs in it, which then risk being ingested by hogs if the food gets eaten by them. I would suggest switching to dry food (cat kibble, broken up dog biscuits, Spikes dry food) at this time of the year and plenty of water put out.
we were very delighted to see some tiny hog poos down the garden paths over the weekend – so we must now have some youngsters on the scene. hope we get to see them!Hello Jan Marie. Yes I specially made a hog house out of wood and placed it in the undergrowth with an L shaped tunnel. Its really private and I hoped may be a hog with hoglets might use it for while. but there is a visitor using it that I know. I tried to stay up late to watch him/her coming out of it but that hasn’t happened with me. But then I have seen another hog passing by through the privets some distance from the hog house at round about midnight. One late night just by chance I took a walk in the garden and heard rustling in the privets, so I guess that was a hog. So plenty of hog action from what I can make out of it all. I’m still keeping my eyes and ears open to inform you all of what’s happening. Happy hog hunting.
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