If you put food in a hedgehog house, you could have 10 or more hogs visiting it each night, as they sniff out the food, and follow each other’s scent to find the food source.
What I have done, is have a feeding station and a hedgehog home, both separated from each other – the feeding station is just a plastic storage box with a hole cut out. It’s really handy as it allows multiple hedgehogs to use it per night, it’s really easy to clean, and I can sit on my porch and watch the hedgehogs eat. I decided to keep their bowl of water outside as they tend to be messy, as the food gets everywhere (they root through the dried food trying to get the best bits, and spill it all over the place) and having the water outside means the food doesn’t get wet.
The house is in a more sheltered spot, and I put loads of brash on it, so it looks like a brash pile with an entrance, to resemble what there homes would look like if they made them themselves.
I did have a hedgehog sleep there for about 3 or 4 nights, he left it one night and another hedgehog took over, I’ve called him Klepto (after Kleptomania), and two nights after that, the original hedgehog who claimed it first, Huffy, did keep sticking his nose in the entrance, and Klepto would come out and biff him. Klepto stayed in the house for around 3 or 4 nights and then vacated.
If a hedgehog home has no food in it, if they use it they are likely to use it as a home, if it’s got food in it, they might just use it as a restaurant they like to visit each night – and the restaurant can get very busy if you live in an area where there’s quite a few hedgehogs.
I don’t know how many hedgehogs I’ve got, but I think it’s over 6 that come to the restaurant each night.
