Hi KM-Basingstoke
Hogs will make multiple visits to feeding stations in one night so it is highly unlikely that you have 30 hedgehogs visiting. If you think about how they eat naturally, they forage and eat small amounts at a time, so making several visits to a feeding station mimics that behaviour. When I was keeping a record of how many times individual hogs visited the feeding area, I found 4 or 5 visits a night were not unusual and some hogs visited more frequently some nights.
We are running up towards hibernation time, especially for the males, some of which disappear to hibernate as early as September so they may be trying to build up some weight in preparation and consequently making more frequent visits. Also it may be that other people nearby normally offer food to the hogs and are away on holiday, so the hogs may be relying more on the offerings from you.
68 videos doesn’t seem unusual to me – although I sympathise re. the batteries! I use rechargeable ones now and tend to change them daily. If they run down too low the cameras are more likely to misbehave.
I wouldn’t worry about the numbers, if I were you – just be happy that the hogs visit and enjoy watching them! When there are more than one hog visiting at a time, it gives the opportunity of seeing their interactions as well.
My advice would be to make water available to the hogs all day every day – not just at night. They can find a certain amount of food in the wild, but can’t always find water. Wide but shallow plant saucers are ideal for this. The ones I use vary in size from about 8 inches across – the hogs are very good at tipping up smaller ones.
Good luck and happy hog watching.
