Hi Nic,
Yes my regular visitor is getting quite chunky now which is a good thing and nice to hear about your hoglet progressing to a hog over the winter (although I have seen a few posts now suggesting some of our hogs might not be hibernating which probably isn’t a good thing?).
I had another new arrival yesterday (23rd March) which was again quite small (a returning female maybe?). I watched it and it was moving fine but quite sluggish so I was a bit concerned about it. It was eating and drinking quite happily and it has retuurned tonight and I saw it do a little sprint in to the flower beds which was probably my fault as I think it caught sight of me. It came back again quite quickly and set about eating and drinking again. If it has only just come out of hibernation would this sluggishness be quite normal? I will keep an eye out for it over the next few nights and check its putting on weight and getting a bit more active.
I have been checking my 2 hog houses and there have been no takers so far but interestingly I have a small wood pile, on which I put garden cuttings, mainly to bring in invertebrates but I noticed this morning there had been a lot of disturbance and wondered if a hog had been ferretting around or maybe even used this as a day nest.
Moving back to my small spikey friend above I put the hog food out around 6.30pm and heard noises coming from said wood pile and I saw said hog. I didn’t think the hogs would use this as a home but I think it must of and buried itself under the pile (mostly small logs/twigs and a nice topping of rotting greenery) like pilling a blanket over itself. It may have just turned up early but it definatley wasn’t in either house so I’m fairly sure it must have been in there instead. If this is the case it shows how a small pile of logs/twigs/vegetation might be enough to provide a temporary home for a hog which everyone could do/manage in their gardens.
Hope you have had some returners now.
