Would like to hear from other hedgehog champions!

[Suzynic]

Hi
I’ve been posting hedgehog awareness leaflets in my neighbourhood for the past three years, I have registered as a champion but don’t have the confidence to knock on doors, although this year I attached PTES hedgehog street info to the hedgehog society leaflets with my name and email on.
I have no idea where to go from here! Ideally I would like to link up the gardens in my road.
So would love to hear from you champions!
By the way just checked my trail cam from last night and we have a visiting hedgehog again this year 🙂

[MikeDF]

Hello Suzynic

Glad to hear you have them back in again! We also have them back. Last year we started getting two fairly large ones in and then we seemed to find a smaller chap!

I installed a couple of “hedgehog houses” under our trees at the bottom of the garden, in the hope that our visitors would take to them. They seemed to be dragging the provided hay in regularly, so I assumed they were taking up residence!

A couple weeks ago all three were in the garden – we feed dried meal-worms, late in the evening after all the birds have gone for the night. It seems that is their favourite…

They also have a track out, under our fence, into the path behind our garden and I have also heard from someone up the road that they are getting visits from some hedgehogs….this track seems very well used.

It seems that the smaller one stays behind while the larger pair push off – would that be a possibility?

There are visits so far every night now as all meal-worms are gone in the morning…

Any more thoughts on these beautiful creatures would be welcome to hear!

[Nic]

Hi Suzynic

Good to hear you have a hedgehog visiting again this year.

It seems it is not as easy as it sounds encouraging people to get together for the benefit of hedgehogs. I put up notices and had a notice put in the local newsletter with email address but have only had two responses. Whilst two is better than none, I was hoping for a few more. We can only do our best!

MikeDF

It was interesting to hear your hedgehog experiences, but I would just mention that dried mealworms should only really be fed to hedgehogs in small amounts – as a snack, or garnish to hedgehog food or cat food. They do not have sufficient nutritional value for hedgehogs. Think of them like crisps or chocolate for humans. Apparently hedgehogs, especially hoglets, can become a bit addicted to them and eat them in preference to things which are better for them. Also, see under ‘What to feed hedgehogs’ re. the CaP ratio. Try either hedgehog food, or cat or dog food either wet food (preferably not in gravy) and or kitten biscuits – but not fish flavour.

By the way, how did you get your photo on here?

[MikeDF]

Hello Nic

Many thanks for your reply! I have often wondered at the food quality of mealworms alone for the hedgehogs. I can totally see that they would be a low value. I’ve tried other foods and they just get left – or the many local cats are in at night as well….

However – our garden used to be difficult to have decent plants, especially young plants. Since our three visitors have been in the slug / snail population has decreased greatly and we have far less problem with slug / snail damage.

I was interested to see a photo of a frog being eaten by a hedgehog on here…..we have a lot of frogs in our (hedgehog friendly!) pond as well!

Maybe the few mealworms we add are the extra…

I think I’ll also try again using a different food – I’ll have another look on the food section…

As to doing the best you can getting people to be aware – as seems to be the way now – people can be quite indifferent to something like this. We CAN only do our best as you say!

The photo was uploaded to my website media files area and the resulting link shows the images……does that help? If you click the img link above a post area it comes up with a box asking for a link – to the image…. I am wondering how this can be achieved if you don’t have a website…..

Many thanks for your comments, I’ll pop over to look at the food section again

Bye for now

Mike

[Nic]

Hi Mike

Glad to hear the slug population there has been going down. Doesn’t seem to work so well here. A lot of them are the big ones and can sometimes be seen sharing a bowl with the hogs! I think it is mostly the little ones that the hogs eat, but they say those are the ones that do the most damage in the garden, so I suppose that is good.

Hope the hogs don’t eat the frog here – I have only seen one, so none to spare! It seems quite active, so hopefully will hop away in time.

You might need to introduce some other hog food gradually mixed in with the mealworms, if they have got used to them. I get ‘I Love Hedgehogs’ food by mail order, when I get bird food. Most cats aren’t interested in it, although there is the occasional one. There are some other hog foods which are supposed to be less interesting to cats as well.

Re. the photo. Unfortunately, I don’t have a website. I wondered if it was something like that. I tried before and couldn’t seem to get a photo on just from the computer, which is a shame.

[Richie]

Hi Suzynic

I haven’t got any obvious answers I’m afraid. I live in a very fractured inner city community where I’m one of the very few people to even put out recycling boxes and what with language barriers etc I don’t think I’d even feel too confident trying to leaflet drop, so you’ve done better than me!

I have established an exit/entrance between our garden and the park though and have put up a hedgehog highway sign. The garden is something of an oasis for the city wildlife you’d expect and until about four years ago we had a couple of hogs. Very sadly the garden runs up to a normally quiet parking area and one hog died there and I have never discovered what happened to the other 🙁

I do wish you the very best of luck! I hope you hear back from a neighbour. I’m assuming they had an e-mail address on them or a number for people to contact.

Well done for what you’ve done,

Richie

[Suzynic]

Hi Mike DF, Nic and Richie,

Thank you all for your comments and apologies for the late reply!

I have still had just the one response to my hedgehog street leaflets, which I put my email address on Richie, not brave enough to put my telephone number down yet!

As you say though Nic one is better than none J

Glad to hear you have visiting hedgies Mike DF, I have definitely seen a hedgehog on my trail cam, but a cat kept coming in and taking the food, I have since made a hedgehog feeding station out of an upturned box, which said cat still managed to squeeze through, have since made hole smaller but not seen hedgie since L Hope he hasn’t given up coming in for food.

Suzanne

[Nic]

Hi Suzanne

I haven’t had any more replies to my notices either. I hope it was worthwhile to you finding the one other person interested in hedgehogs. It is nice to know there is someone else nearby.

Glad to hear you have seen a hog on your cam. If you have trouble with cats eating the food, there are some hedgehog foods which are supposed to be less interesting to cats. I use ‘I Love Hedgehogs’ and most cats ignore it. I have never had any problem with the hogs refusing to eat it and have been using it for years. I think it is Ark Wildlife Food who do a similar one. I usually feed the hedgehogs in the open so that I can see them better and only leave a very small amount out after I stop watching. I like to think the hogs spend the rest of the night finding wild food! I try to make my garden hog friendly to, hopefully, help them with that.

[JollyP]

Hi there, I have been meaning to post for some time to tell you about my efforts to make our area hedgehog friendly, and this thread seems to be the one to respond to. I live in a fairly leafy suburb where about 30 houses with large gardens back onto each other in a square. I became aware of a number of visiting hedgehogs about a year ago, and realised that they probably had access to quite a lot of gardens, which is why they were doing well. I watched the hogs avidly all summer and into the winter, and I took in and over-wintered an underweight autumn juvenile (named Iggie) in December. When it was nearly time to release Iggie, I decided I would invite the neighbours in our ‘square’ to come round to my house for an informal gathering to learn a bit about how to encourage hedgehogs and meet Iggie as she was released – a lot of people haven’t even seen a live hedgehog. So I printed invitations, using the Hedgehog Street invite for a template, and hoped people would come. I was delighted when I had twelve guests representing five other households come round. There were a few children and they were all really interested to hear what food they could supply, how they could make hedgehog hides in the garden and ensure there was a gap in their fence. They loved seeing Iggie and that evening Iggie ventured off into their gardens. I was really encouraged that there would be at least a few other families that would be looking out for her. Unfortunately one family brought their Spikes food round to me because they had rats and didn’t think they could continue to leave food out. Since Iggie’s release I have released another two females for the local rescue centre. From my night camera I have been able to identify Iggie visiting EVERY night. In fact she thinks she owns the feeding station and huffs furiously at any other hog that approaches. I have at least four regular visitors every evening and I’m hoping to see hoglets before too long. On the invitation I sent round, I listed things people could do, just in case they couldn’t come to the meeting, eg leave out water, check before strimming, don’t use slug pellets etc. So I’m hoping that even if not all the neighbours came, they might be more aware. So I’d say go ahead and reach out to your neighbours – there will be some people who want to help and it is worth it.

[Suzynic]

Hi Nic
The person nearby is currently more concerned about another nature issue than hedgehogs at the moment sadly. Nice enough chap but not someone that I can see working alongside unfortunately.
Thank you for the name of that hedgehog food, the hedgehog society sell it too so will order some. I would prefer to leave the food bowl out in the open as I can’t see them if they disappear into the feeding box.
Suzanne

[Suzynic]

Hi JollyP
Congratulations it seems that you have managed to get some positive interest from your neighbours.
How lovely that Iggie is still popping by!
We had hoglets under our rabbit hutch one year and it was wonderful watching them go out every night foraging.
I haven’t given up just yet, just keeping in touch with like minded people on here and facebook groups is helping, it will hopefully give me the confidence and knowledge to get back out there doing my bit for hedgehogs 🙂
Suzanne

[Nic]

Hi Suzanne

I don’t think any of the people who contacted me are as interested in the hogs as I am, but knowing there are people nearby who are hog friendly is nice. I think it is partly just luck whether you find anyone else nearby who is very interested and it sounds as if you have gone to a lot of trouble. I am just contenting myself now, with putting up information notices in the local shop – the latest about garden hazards for hogs. Particularly relevant at this time of year with so many people using strimmers, etc.

If you are feeding in the open – I have a small plastic children’s table which I put over the hog food when it is raining, so the food doesn’t get too soggy. Not as easy to see them as when they are completely in the open but easier than in a box.

JollyP
Well done with your efforts to spread the hedgehog word. I’m pleased to hear Iggie is still visiting. Is Iggie a female? If so, she may have been huffing at a male encouraging him to ‘court’ her.

[Suzynic]

Hi Nic, yes I have put a leaflet up about the danger of strimmers at our allotments, I do need to do more though ie with the diy stores for instance.

I have a very small plastic table I can use, one I bought for the rabbits entertainment! I will use that thanks. I bought some of that I love hedgehog food thank you, its been eaten the last couple of days, cats definitely not interested, so hoping the hedgehog ate it, not checked trail cam yet, but suspect it could be magpies eating it instead 🙁

[Nic]

Hi Suzanne

Lucky rabbits! hope they don’t mind you borrowing their table. I wonder how the rabbits react to the hedgehogs. But, I suppose they are shut in cages at night so possibly don’t see each other?

I often see magpies, on the cam, in the garden very early in the morning. Interesting as they are not around much later in the day. Hope it does turn out to be a hedgehog eating the food.

[JollyP]

Hi Nic
Yes, Iggie is female. If the other hedgehog she was huffing at was a male then he really wasn’t interested, certainly not on camera anyway! There has been a great deal of huffing outside our window late at night, so maybe the hedgehog population is about to increase!

[Author]

Posts