Hi Moggy
Some hogs choose not to hibernate, so that is a possibility, but they also sometimes come out of hibernation for brief periods (and even sometimes make new hibernating nests) and then return to hibernation again, so it could also have been that.
It sounds as if you might have missed all the information about mealworms, but it has now been found that they are not good for hedgehogs. They have an imbalance of calcium and phosphorous, which causes the calcium to be leached from the bones of the hogs. Unfortunately, they seem to like them a lot and can become addicted to them and refuse to eat anything else – which is really bad news for the hogs. They are especially bad for youngsters when they are growing their bones – it causes them to grow deformed bones – which can be life threatening.
So, please give the mealworms a miss. The hogs will soon get used to something else. Don’t feel too bad about having fed mealworms in the past. Remember you can’t know about something until you find out about it, and many of us have fed mealworms, to some extent, in the past before finding out about the problems with them.
It sounds as if you have a bit of a ‘Romeo’ there. I had one here a few years ago making advances to a that years hoglet. She was tiny and he was enormous! He was never going to get anywhere – she was far too young – maybe he was just practising! That particular male was quite low down the pecking order, so maybe he didn’t normally get a chance with the females. Often the big males aren’t that interested in the small females, but there may not be many females out of hibernation yet.
Happy hog watching.
