Baby Hedgehog

[Scarlet]

He's huuuuge Nicos he hasn't been able to fit in the ice cream tub I used for weighing him for a few weeks now. I so hope he lives. Think I might need to invest in a webcam

[Nicos]

Webcam?...brill idea!
(We bought a cheap one for exactly the same reason- but it was rubbish- should have bought a decent one! )

[Compo72]

If the hogs put in an appearance over the next few nights.
I will try and upload a few decent pictures, though the picture quality does vary at times.

We seem to have one large hog , two med sized hogs and a little hog.
I would hope that the decent size hogs all survive the winter.
Even the little hog seems to be getting bigger since we started feeding them.

to try and ensure that the little hog gets his fair share we have about 6-7 dishes dotted about the garden .
some dishes are undercover, some are out in the borders. There is no preference to which ones they choose to feed from we have found.
After rain the hogs are not active anywhere


We made our own special mix for them with crushed up wild bird food, sunflower hearts , fat balls, meal worms, peanuts.
I even bought a bag of supposed specialist hedgehog food, which looked like dry dog food.
To our surprise the hogs completely ignored the specialist food for them.
Tried soaking it and crushing it up , still they would not touch it.
Meal worms seem to be the favourite. You can see on cam they will pick them out from other food , keep returning to same dish for them. 5-6 times a night.
At every feeding point i leave a dish with fresh water too, which they appreciate.

We researched what to feed them online. cat food is often mentioned , but we do have a roving cat, which you can see on cam some nights.

hedgehogs are supposed to be loners , though we have noticed that 2 hogs will feed together, though never move together.

The hedgehog i saw the other day was curled up in the border , so i just lightly moved him towards more cover. I am unsure what the hogs motives were for been there , when a proper hedgie house was feet away.
Though perhaps there was method in the madness as the hog was in prime spot to go for the meal worms upon waking up.

[Nicos]

That sounds fantastic Compo!

Sounds like your nurturing of them is mutually beneficial!

I'd love to see some piccies if you can get any.
What webcam do you have- and would you recommend it?

* I now have serious webcam envy!!!
( thinking Xmas is not too far away to start thing of a pressie for myself.

urmmmm....I think that should read as 'a pressie for himself'

[Compo72]

The webcam we have is on loan from durham wildlife trust.
Its called a little acorn 6310 , its not cheap but does the job.
Provides excellent daytime images but night time not convinced.

it does go through batteries quite quickly especially if you have it on photo/video settings.
My criticism would be that it produces a lot of white flash when taking the night images.
Hence the hog appear like white balls of fluff on the screen if too close to the cam.
Though i guess you can play about with the settings.

durham wildlife trust are trialling different webcams to see which one gives best results.

ive heard that VW tech 720P 8MP low glow night infra red fast triggers cams are good value.
£70 quid on Amazon

Im no techie expert new to all this kinda stuff.
but would recommend doing research online before buying any webcams.
especially about the quality of night images , low glow. led light etc.
I read that scientists have detected wildlife that wont go near the cams as they detect the infra red which puts them off coming too close

It has been a useful exercise with the webcam.
we will probably buy one ourselves sometimes in the future.

Well its time i went off and fed up for the nightly visitors.

[Compo72]

pictures

Morning everyone.

Here is a picture of last nights hogs around one feeder.
Note there is 2 hogs, the little hog quite clear on the left, the other med size hog (fuzzy blob) in the feeder.
As i said previously the white flash from the cam is a problem . At dawn and dusk you get better images than complete darkness.

Last couple of nights the hogs are coming in less and staying near the hedgeback more.
They visited that particular feeder 3-4 times up to 5am this morning.

Just after 9pm we had a walk down the garden to see the med hog was busy in the borders.


Plus finally a Jay this morning. According to the camera the outside temperature was about 2-3 deg at 7am.

If i get some better hog pics i will upload a few.

[Nicos]

Fantastic Compo!

thanks so much for sharing- just goes to show what goes on when you encourage wildlife into your garden!

( lovely clear piccie of the Jay by the way! )

[Scarlet]

Brill that's lovely to see.
I don't think I'd mind the White light too much if it's just when it's pitch black, it's just good to have a nosy at what they do in the evenings.

[Jay22]

Great pics...do you know I have never seen a Jay before other than in pictures!

[Nicos]

We had one on our last lottie.

used to watch him pinching whole gooseberries!
Think we ,single handedly, boosted our local Jay population

Lovely plumage ( she says in her best Monty Python accent! )

[Nicos]

Back to your hedgehog Scarlet...

Have you seen any others around recently ( ie scat)- just thinking he probably had siblings?????

[Scarlet]

We always see them in the Summer evenings, so I know they are about. Though when I found this one the "hedgehog lady" asked me to go and look for the others as they would be nearby. I couldn't find any but left catfood out for a week or so that was getting eaten, though as I also keep chickens rats aren't too far away and I can never tell who or what has eaten it! I can't leave it out every night like Compo does, as that would be more encouragement for the rats. Having a webcam would letter know what was eating it too. I've never seen scat, but that area is all grassed, I think I'd be very lucky to spot any. I had deer in the garden this week (I think)they ate all my corn and rolled over all my spuds!

[Guest]

And as one is released another enters a grapes house

Found a little one wondering the paddock this morning and I think it is safe to say, the hog is here for winter. The hog is booked in for the vet tomorrow and has no issues with appetite

Edit: TY for this thread btw, just had another read through in case I missed anything helpful.

[Scarlet]

By sheer coincidence my boys fed and let mine go last night interesting to see if his food gets eaten tonight. Hope they give him a dose of wormer NG, I think it makes a difference to the weight gain.

C'mon, tell us more - how heavy is he?

[Guest]

I haven't weighed him/her as it hasn't stopped eating yet also he was panicking a lot this morning so trying to leave him/her be. I will see how it goes at the vets tomorrow then I will take the monitoring from there