Hi Nic – sorry this turned out to be longer than I expected!
I haven’t seen it during the day again, but I have been leaving food and water out 24/7. I got dried cat biscuits as it was mentioned elsewhere on the site and I also put out some broken up fat balls. These were all received gratefully by something – I was praying I hadn’t just started feeding a rat. I’ve also made a shelter, following the plans(as best as I could) on this site.
So, completely excited by it all and desperate to see what we were encouraging into the garden, we got a wildlife camera, and put it up last night. It had come back! It had a good drink and a munch (I bought some dried bugs and soaked them, plus some more fat balls) also my watering – no hosepipe ban here yet) seems to have drawn some slugs back to the surface. I can’t believe I’m happy to see a slug, although I think the one I saw was too big for little hoglet 🙁 there a couple of guys in the planning team at the council where I work who are champions for Nottingham’s hedgehog highway, and promote holes at all approved new builds. They have advised some live mealworms might be a nice treat for it, but I’m not sure if that would be a step too far for my stomach. I’m assuming I would have to store them in the fridge!
Now I know it’s definitely our little friend I will start putting a bit of wet cat food out at night as well. If you think I should wait up and try and catch it to get it checked out I can do that. what is the best thing to put it in once I’ve caught it please?
