Trail cam
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did you have a nice holiday?
I’ve definitely got hogalism, I never stop thinking about them – I don’t like to go to sleep unless I’ve seen a hedgehog in my garden.
What does your daughter think of your hedgehogs? did she fall in love with them? As it’s so easy to do, they are so adorable.
Hey Hedgie Lover, yes thanks a great holiday in France to see my son.
I need no t have worried about the hogs, my daughter is smitten like the rest of us.!lol
Sounds like all is going well with your little visitors. I had originally thought Hetty would produce hoglets, but it wasn’t to be , not this year! To be honest if I had hoglets roaming around my garden, after the initial excitement I think they would be yet another source of anxiety for me lol.
It was really great to return from hols and see that my little friends have hung around! But why wouldn’t they? It’s a great hogtel and a 5 spike restaurant !
Take care happy hog watching! XRECHARGEABLE BATTERIES.
Just a note re. rechargeable batteries. Each battery has the two figures shown on it the V and Ah.
All rechargeable batteries I have come across only have 1.2V as opposed to ordinary batteries 1.5V. Most night cams need 6V, so that you need to have at the very least 5 rechargeable batteries (to make up 6V) and you will probably find that you need more and most cameras work best with 8. Some need 8 anyway.
The Ah figure is related to how long the charge is held. So the higher the figure, the longer the rechargeable batteries are likely to last. It’s better to get batteries with as high Ah figure as you can. Preferably at least 2500 as Alcuza suggests. The cheaper batteries, which you tend to find in solar lights, etc, only have 1200Ah so will not last nearly as long and are probably not worth using in a night camera. If the charge starts to go before the night is over, you may find that the camera starts misbehaving – flashing on and off when on video, taking very short clips, etc. Very annoying, so best to use batteries with the higher Ah.
How long the batteries last is related to how you use the camera. If you are using it for photos the batteries will last very much longer than if you are using it for video. Even with video. If, for instance, you have one hog visiting twice a night the batteries will last much longer than if you have multiple hogs visting a few times a night, hogs deciding to do their courtship circling in front of the camera, mice flitting backwards and forwards and, of course, a variety of cats visiting.
Rechargable batteries will become less efficient as they get older and are likely to need recharging more often.
I don’t know how much you are feeding hedgehogs but it should not cost much; a few pence a night should suffice. There is more about feeding hedgehogs on my Hedgeblog but in a nutshell, half to one ounce of beef mince plus a few cat biscuits costs less than 10p. Cheaper than the muck sold as ‘hedgehog food’ or tinned cat/dog food.
I agree on the recommendation of Browning Recon Force Advantage but cannot speak from experience as I baulked at the price in the UK! There is a very good American website with what look like impartial reviews and tests Trailcampro. I have no connection with them and in fact ended up buying a camera from someone else but their reviews are worth a look before taking the plunge. As mentioned elsewhere, I have tried 5 of the cheaper cameras [£60-70] and returned all of them as either very unreliable or simply didn’t work at all. None of them seem to have been reviewed by Trailcampro. Of the Browning however they mention that it will only record for 20″. Bushnell, mentioned elsewhere in this post, also sound good but again apparently only record for 15″. While better than nothing, that seems too short to me. Most of the cheaper cameras I tried had the possibility of recording for up to 2 minutes. In the end I came down in favour of getting a Spy Point Force 20 which scores well in Trailcampro tests [and others] and costs about £70 less than the Browning. However, I cannot say yet whether it is any good as I have yet to receive it.
Further to my previous post about Browning cameras and my decision to try a Spypoint Force 20, if you are thinking of doing the same, DON’T! I have devoted a whole page Camera Woes to detailing what is wrong with this camera but in a nutshell, more often than not, it fails to record anything. E.g. food being eaten but nothing recorded showing what is eating it; hedgehogs entering food station but no video of them leaving etc. Also the focal length of the lens is too long i.e. the angle of view too narrow which limits what is recorded [when it is recorded at all!] to just the centre of the field of view and misses all peripheral action. It is also optically very poor. It claims to be 20mp but this is what they call an ‘interpolated’ image, not achieved optically but artificially inflated by software creating duplicate pixels which serve only to create a bigger image, thus attaining the manufacturer’s claim, while merely adding fuzziness to the output image. Finally the resolution and quality of image is poor compared to cameras costing half as much. There is an example on Camera Woes showing an image from the Spypoint camera compared with that from a cheap camera. The latter produced FHD [Full High Definition] images 1920 x 1080 px whereas the Spypoint produces only HD images 1280 x 720 px or 720p in the jargon. As can be seen in the examples, the Spypoint image is poor.
Hi Hedgie Lover, so sorry not been on forum so missed your post. Hubby not too well at moment. Gravel tray, on line and pick up at Wilco’s. £3-50p it needs a step putting in so they can get out, can’t measure for you at mo, but if you look it up you will see from price how big it is. There is also a larger gravel tray that is a lot shallower and longer. I thought it may be better but it costs more and as you say, it’s costing half the earth to buy food and dishes, boxes and living accommodation and these little minxes don’t pay a half penny towards it. You just get the leaving of poo and wee which you then start inspecting! Next we will be buying testing kits to check these leaving as well! Lol
Best wishes to you all.PS, Regarding amounts of food. There is an average of food to give a hog, but when you have 5 coming, it mounts up. Then 2 turn up and eat the lot! As I’ve said before, you can’t seem to tell these hogs they are only supposed to eat so much each! Best wishes.
I seem to have more and more hedgehogs visiting – there must be about 10 of them. When I first started feeding them, I used to feel a bit not satisfied if I didn’t see a hedgehog before I went to bed – now it’s a case of – if I don’t see 3 in the feeding station each night at the same time. Each night I see at least two in the feeding station together.
I got my mum round to hedgehog watch with me on Sunday night – it took about 10mins wait for a hedgehog to turn up, and then another one shortly arrived after that – I used to wait all night to see if one turns up, but now I only have to wait up to 20mins.
That’s why they are getting through so much food, as each hedgehog that visits only eats a small amount each time, but all together, they end up eating a lot.
I found my water dish from Riverside wildlife, isn’t big enough now – as most nights most of the water has gone, so I’ve got a gravel tray now and filled it up with water. I’m still gonna use the little water dish as they’ve got used to it – they have a nibble, then come out and have a drink of water – so I don’t want to upset their routine.
I have no idea where all these hedgehogs are coming from – but perhaps not many people are feeding them in this area, or even know they are here.
Because there is so many, I’m finding it really difficult to distinguish each one, I realise it’s gonna take me a while to work out who is who.
I bought a hedgehog home a while ago, and so far it hasn’t been touched – but this weekend, someone has been in to have a look around – I find straw really useful, as it flattens or they make a hole through it – so it’s a good way to see if you’ve had a visitor – I’ve got straw in the home, but put it in the tunnel aswell, as it’s easy for me to see the straw in the tunnel, so I don’t have to disturb anyone if they are nesting in it.
Hi, I am an administrator on a facebook group [Hedgehog Champions of Cheshire, Wirral (and North Wales)] where I post my short 10 second clips regularly. Feel free to request to join so you can see the quality of the footage.
I have 4 Apeman trailcams but that’s really not enough for the size of my garden. I have one in the back aimed at the hard standing seating area because it get loads of slugs which are easy for hoggies to feast on.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/493399147454218/?ref=bookmarksHi Hedgie Lover
Large plant saucers are ideal for putting water out for hogs. Most of mine are about a foot across, but not so deep that a hoglet can get stuck. They are relatively inexpensive so easy to have them in various locations in the garden. The birds quite like them during the day as well!
I really will get round to updating the notes with tips for natural identification, soon. There never seems enough time for everything!
Hi Dale, thankyou for your input, but all cats are different and I’ve already caught one last year pawing at a pool unfortunate hog, who was rolled up with spines erect. My concern was for baby hogs who maybe hadn’t got their spines yet. I’ve also caught kittens trying to get in the feeding station around the corridor of bricks, again clawing at a hog whilst trying to get at the food. Scratches can cause infections. However, I’m sure yours are perfectly well behaved, so, best wishes.
I’m glad I found this thread as I’ve been wondering what camera to get, I was looking at a couple from amazon but the reviews weren’t great, I’ll have a look at a few that have been mentioned on here.
Regarding rechargeable batteries you may want to take a look at 7dayshop, they offer the highest rating you’ll find anywhere in the UK for AA batteries with 2900mah, I’ve been using them for years and since I put solar powered lights in the garden I now use them in those as well & even during the winter months when the sun isn’t hitting the solar sensor to recharge the battery the lights stay on for a couple of weeks between needing to be taken out & recharged, much better than how long they lasted with the original low powered 600mah battery.
Hey Paul
I have a bushell trail cam- I bought it fro the charity site nature spy. Cost about £125 uses alkaline batteries and does great video . Bought it in June and not had to change the batteries thus far and I’ve got it set at the max time of 3miniute video.
I’m a bit of a technophobe so rely on my Hubby to sort it out. But every morning I get to view fab video ! Hope you get sorted and happy hog watching!
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