Hey Nic
You really are a font of knowledge! I didn’t realise males travel further, but of course it makes perfect sense!
Hetty doesn’t always leave the garden to forage and when she does it’s usually only a few hours between 10pm – 4am. Whilst Bruiser often doesn’t come out to the feeding stations until 10pm and he has sometimes scarpered off on his travels in 10 minutes, pretty much as soon as he’s scoffed the food.
Yes I was hopeful for hoglets, but this was a while back, when I was a newbie to the obsessional hog world lol!
I now realise that Hetty probably wasn’t mature enough, she was quite tiny when I first saw her. I’m now thinking she was most probably a last years late hoglet.
Its funny now to realise I made so many assumptions as a newbie, I certainly don’t profess to know a lot about hogs, but I know a lot more than those early days. I got all excited when she started moving the leaves and the hay I’d left near her nest. And I kept giving my husband excuses why we couldn’t go away on holiday- all un hog related of course. Lol
But I think I was getting ahead of myself and she was just ready for a clean up and refurb of the nest.
Actually, I’d be interested to know how often hogs refresh there nests, I was thinking of gathering more supplies as it gets colder, just to make life and hibernation a little easier – it can’t be very comfortable under the shed, as it’s sitting on concrete slabs.
But I digress, you should see Hetty now – She looks fab! Really healthy, fit and doubled in size. I’m really hoping she doesn’t have late hoglets now, as I understand it’s a bit late to ensure survival !
It would make me extremely happy and satisfied, just to know I had helped a little bit to increase Hetty’s life chances and that of Bruiser.
But thank you, I will try to stop worrying about Bruiser now, but as you know it’s difficult when they’ve been coming out and eating the food every night, to suddenly see the food untouched.
But I’m not giving up on him, it’s a good restaurant, if he’s a smart hog he will return – unless of course someone is offering him naughties like mealy worms!
Happy hog watching! x
