Hi Nic, Millie,
Sorry for the late reply, I was waiting for the mob to return and pass on some good news, but sadly not one hedgehog has turned up now for over three weeks. I have been doing some investigating and am almost certainly convinced that their disappearance is down to badgers. The badger set we discovered is only 1 kilometre away as the crow flies and we are close to the edge of the village near open fields. Yesterday I found some very strange droppings on our freshly mowed lawn, which bizarrely looked to contain cherry stones! I Googled them and very similar droppings were attributed to badgers. I didn’t think that it was possible for badgers to access our garden, but I discovered some footage on YouTube of them wriggling through cat flaps and some incredibly small gaps of just a few centimetres. I leave a substantial brick a few inches in front of one of the hedgehog holes to stop cats gaining entrance, but this has been moved out of the way several times over recent weeks, I have never yet witnessed a cat move a brick!
It is at this time of year that young badgers leave the sett and venture off on their own; having seen their shape shifting abilities on the video footage below, I now don’t think a youngster would have any problem at all gaining access. I just hope to goodness that they are all ok and have just temporarily moved house away from the danger. Like I say, I am a bit of an insomniac and I’m sure I would have heard the hedgehogs screams if they were under attack from a psychotic badger. 🙁
