Hi Darren,
Sounds like you’re doing pretty well and have got most things right so far! I would put out more food if you can- as you say this is a critical time and you probably have more than one hog visiting, so I try to leave enough out that there’s always a few biscuits left over, rather than a hog coming later on when it’s all run out. Each hog can make multiple visits to a single garden in a night, so the food probably gets finished quite quickly. They don’t tend to prefer different foods at different times of the night, so if they are showing a clear preference for the cat biscuits by eating them first, it might indicate they are getting more of the nutrients they need at this time from the cat food. You don’t NEED to provide what is labeled as hedgehog food- it’s not licensed or regulated, so anyone could mix up whatever and call it hedgehog food, so it can be difficult to know what is in there or how good it might be for them, although the meaty type foods are the most appropriate. A lot of us, myself included, just feed them cat biscuits, although some hogs also enjoy wet cat or dog food. (I tried mine on wet cat food, and they did not want to know. Fussy little spikeballs.)
As for the hog house, my instinct would be to clean it but I’m not an expert. I’ve seen them coming out of their nests to go toilet before, but maybe they aren’t staying over in yours yet? It’s good that they are investigating in any case, hopefully they will trust it enough stay over regularly, or build a hibernation nest in there.
