Hi everyone, new member here so I’m a bit late to the party.
I was clearing my garden in August and unfortunately I raked through a pile of twigs that was a hedgehog nest, I put the nest back and cancelled clearing my garden; mum moved her nest twice and everything worked out ok.
I started leaving food out for mum and I bought myself a trail cam so that I could film her in my garden. A couple of weeks later two hoglets appeared, I’ve named them Gizmo and Snoop Hogg and I’ve filmed them every day since late August.
All of them have markings on their bodies that glow white on the infrared night vision, one of the hoglets has three stripes down one side, I’ve watched the hoglets since the day they left the nest and I can assure you all that nobody has painted them or put any markings on them, the markings are natural but they might not be white like they appear to be on the night vision images.
I’ve filmed myself when I’ve been in the garden and my black trousers glow white on the night vision, so it is possible that the markings are actually dark but glow white with infrared light. A black and white patchy dog will have black and white patchy skin below its fur, like birthmarks, perhaps hedgehogs are the same.
I’ve bought and made several hog-houses for them and Gizmo has been busy building a nest in one of them, he used to go home to mum every day just before light but a couple of days ago he moved in permanently. I expect that Snoop Hogg also has a nest somewhere but its not on camera so I don’t know where it is. I weighed one a week ago and it was 440g, it was 200g two weeks previously so I think they will be well above the 500g needed to survive hibernation and I’ll be seeing them again next year.
Hope all of your hogs and hoglets are doing well.
