Hi Annie
Yes, I know, poor rat. I did feel very sad about the poor thing. I agree, it is a bit contrary of us not wanting the rat version of wildlife visiting. But there is always the problem of neighbours, as well. Someone I knew was apparently reported to the Council and told they had to stop feeding the hogs because it was attracting rats. Your brother’s place sounds nice, although not sure how I’d cope with a hoard of ratlets!
I thought the same about spines re-growing, but apparently they do and I rang up earlier to get a progress report and Siili’s spines are beginning to grow back – such good news! The lady at the Wildlife Hospital has a lot of experience of similar injuries and says the usually do. Such an amazing thing. I’m hoping to get a photo. I never think to take a photo when I find injured hogs because I’m always too worried about settling them in, etc. but apparently she did take a photo, so will be able to see the difference. It’s so easy to forget how bad a wound was, once it’s healed.
Brilliant news that you have had 2 hogs on your camera footage! But so sorry one of them has been marked. My current visitors have been too, but it sounds not quite as bad as yours. Although one of them seems to have an unnecessary number of spots/stripes and another an excessively large blob. I’ve just had a bit of a rant about marking elsewhere, although managed to restrain myself a bit – although you might not be able to tell! But I just think it is so sad – poor hogs – they really don’t deserve it.
Yes, I was using bricks to keep cats out at one time. At the moment I’m using a piece of Perspex type stuff on earth filled flower pots with bricks on top. It seems a good supply of bricks is a bit of a necessity with hogs around! I never seem to have enough.
The thing about all these stories about parasites in all the hogs’ natural food, is that hogs have been surviving for millions of years most of which presumably co-existing with parasites. I think they can cope with a certain level as long as it doesn’t get too bad. The worry is that if people over-treat the hogs, some of these parasites may become immune to treatments and the hogs less able to cope with them by their natural defences. I know when we had our pony – quite a while ago – even then, there was a worry that parasites were beginning to become immune to certain treatments and it was advised to alternate them. In the end we used to do egg counts instead and it turned out she didn’t need worming most of the time. But I don’t imagine all the natural food has parasites in it.
That male hog was here again last night at the same time as the female – now called Igel (hedgehog in German – possibly Siili’s sister, so thought it was appropriate). Little Igel was huffing away, but he just carried on eating and then exited! She didn’t seem too worried and carried on eating where he left off. (She does a bit of a Digger impersonation and digs through her food, but doesn’t circle clockwise like Digger did. She looks nothing like Digger, being a much paler hog.) I wonder whether the male thinks she is too young – she’s probably last year’s hoglet. But I have in the past seen a male hog circling quite a small hoglet – not sure what that was about, either.
My garden is probably at it’s best at the moment with loads of different types of bees buzzing around. Also caught an image of a bat on my camera – still haven’t got round to getting one of those detectors yet. Sadly, frog seems to have gone missing, but there are a couple of waterboatmen in one pond – always love to see those. The pond frog was in has got a bit shaded so that might be why – all the plants have grown so tall with all that rain! So nice to have some sunshine today.
