Hello All,
Just joined, we have a couple of years experience of watching and feeding etc.
This year we think we have at least three hogs and possibly more, two males that seem to fight when they come across each other and a female. We see on the trail cameras various behaviours. A few weeks ago it was all very amorous and graphic !! Now it’s more hedgehog grumpiness, we see a submissive hog that gets biffed but it almost seems to accept it and is quite, almost used to it, and just waits until the aggressor goes away and carries on as if nothing has happened.
The we see the “reversing” , one hog makes the loud sniffing noise, it might approach another but then “goes into reverse” and backs off.
Then occasionally and more recently we have seen more aggressive fighting where one hog when biffed starts to fight back and it all gets a bit silly for a few seconds then they seem to back off each other.
We have, for the last couple of nights, seen what we think is a new hog because it doesn’t seem to know it’s way around and just bumps into the food and water eventually.
We have food and water in several places, including outside and in a feeding station. I am wondering, because it is tricky to tell them apart, if we have “resident” hogs and a number of “transients”.
We know that there are quite a lot of hogs locally, but obviously it is the case that neighbours talk about “there” hogs etc. when it is very probable we are all seeing the same animals. We have worked out a patrol route for our “residents” that they seem to follow around local gardens.
Our biggest problem is trying to identify individuals, they all seem well fed and a similar size at present, the males are obvious by behaviour and the occasional glimpse of it’s bits when having a scratch.
So should we be worried about the aggression ? It seems not ?
Secondly, any tips for identifying individuals ?
Many thanks.
