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Home Forums Hedgehog signs and sightings What could have killed our hedgehog? Reply To: What could have killed our hedgehog?

#18497
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Nic

Hi Kaz39tyas

Sorry to hear about the poor dead hog. It’s always very upsetting when we have got to know a hog and this happens.

Is it an area of your garden you visit frequently, or could it have been dead for a while? (i.e. died naturally.) In which case it could be almost anything which ate it.

If it has newly appeared, the most likely suspect is a badger. I know you said that there aren’t badgers around, but sometimes a solitary badger will pass through an area for some reason, i.e. possibly been displaced from it’s previous home, etc. It’s possible it could be a fox. Many foxes leave hogs alone, but a few foxes have apparently been known to wait until the hogs unroll and then pounce.

The best thing to do if you have foxes around, as a precaution, is to only feed the hogs in a safe place. Although a bit difficult to protect them from feeding where the fruit is. (The hogs are most likely to have been visiting the area where the fallen fruit were to eat the insects which they attracted, rather than the fruit itself.)

Sadly, you might never know what happened.

Hedgehog