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Talkback: Hedgehog spotting
rowena2188yahoocom
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I have two lovely ones in my garden, I feed them on dog meat with a tray of water at the side, I took this shot one evening, I was amazed to find two there,I think one must have told the other one, Hey! I had chicken last night so come with me,Problem is I now have to sit in garden to keep the cats from eating the food,I have used a old peat bag with straw and paper inside but don't think they are using it , maureen ,cambridge
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We also spotted a baby in our front garden earlier this week but haven't seen it since.
I haven't seen a hedgehog for years and feel quite deprived
In the sticks near Peterborough
I rarely see them both there is always their mess and I also have a motion sensor camera that films them in the dark. I often have 30 to 40 films per night. I have always fed the birds and I think they started to visit my garden to feed under the bird feeders.
Hi I am new to the forum. I also love hedgehogs and have been lucky enough to have heard and seen a pair in my back garden in mating ritual, grunting and dancing about, so sweet! I have not however seen babies yet but I have an old wine box with a hole at each end under a bench at the end of my garden. This was used last year as I had put some leaves in it but noticed fresh grass at the entrance. There are quite a few hedgehogs in this area and they can easily access my garden as my gates have a small hole cut in the bottom to allow my cat a quick getaway if anything chases her.
I saw a young hedgehog slowly walking up a friend's driveway. I managed to get hold of my friend before he came home to lunch and I was afraid that he would run over it. He put it in his greenhouse so I do hope it survives the winter.
Could I ask Lynne Box about the plastic crates she puts over the hedgehog food. where, please, is the 10cm hole made, at the side? I live in Worcester as well but the only hedgehogs we have seen was 30 years ago when we first came back to Worcester and we have sern none since, though we would love to do so. How big are the crates you use and could you tell me, please, where to get them?
I put out dried mealworms and chopped nuts with raisins for the hedgehogs. Even though my garden is small - only about 30ft by 20ft, I get lots in the Summer - sometimes 5 or 6 at a time, often there are males snorting loudly and trying to mate with the females all night (we have to close the windows to sleep!). In the last couple of days, I hav found three very small hedgehogs in the garden (two were 150gs and one was 280g) and I have taken them to the local hedgehog rescue centre as they are way too small to survive the winter. I think that if you put out food for the hedgehogs they are quite likely to come to your garden now days, because gardens are generally so barren nowadays compared to years ago, and their natural diet of beetles, caterpillars and earthworms are a lot harder for them to find - I'm sure it's a relief for them to find some regular nutritious food.
Make sure they can find their way in to your garden - we have cut archways (we call them hedgehog gates) in the bottom of our garden fences so that the hoggies can wander from garden to garden. As well as putting food out a bowl of fresh water is essential as they get very thirsty (that's why they try to drink from garden ponds, often with sad results).
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Great to hear these tales of hedgehog sightings. Dovefromabove's comments about garden ponds got me thinking. I was sure I'd read somewhere that hedgehogs were supposed to be good swimmers. But then it occurred to me that many garden ponds are sheer-sided fibreglass or concrete constructions and even if they could swim around a bit, an unfortunate hedgehog would not be able to scramble up the slippery sides. I eventually found a swimming report in one of my favourite animal books, 'A beast pocket for the pocket' by Edmund Sanders, 1937. He also reports that "There is some evidence for the current belief that they suck cows' udders" and that they will try to taste anything "including boot polish!" I recommend this book, often to be had for a few quid from second-hand bookshops: http://bugmanjones.com/2012/02/01/four-rabbits-make-one-felt-hat/