OK thanks Nic, Simbo, I think you have made my mind up for me.
While the hog has been eating some dog food (it hasn’t eaten many nuts and the couple of pieces of date I put in earlier are untouced), I don’t think it is eating enough to be gaining the weight it needs for hibernation, so I am going to wait until later tonight and pop it under the nearest place of relative safety that I can find near to where I found it.
Although well intentioned, I do not think my efforts at shepherding this young one are going to have a happy ending if I persist, and I think it will stand a better chance on its own. Unfortunately, I do not know anyone in the area it was found well enough that I feel I could ask them to start putting food out, so I will put it back somewhere and look at dropping a bit of dog food back there every night over the next week or two, as there is not much else I can do.
FWIW, it was not found during the day, it was about 10pm and lok=oks healthy if a bit small, just that it was in the road where the towns pubs and takeaways are and it seemed like a far from ideal place. I was going to re-locate it around the corner, but then I recalled something I had been told when I found a juvenile in the day some years back and I thought it looked a little small, so here we are. And the local rescue is obviously inundated and have battened down the hatches… which I suppose indicates a healthy population around these parts?!
Hopefully, the only effect of my intervention will be that they little one carries on about their business, hibernates, wakes up next year and tells its friends a fireside story about the alien that came in it’s big ship with lights, took it away for the night and showed it strange foods from far away lands.
Thanks all again for your advice,
Tony
