A question about food.
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Hi all, I’m new to this site, having recently joined. We have been visited by a hog routinely over the last 3 yrs (don’t know if it’s the same hog!) I have a water bowl out all the time and occasionally put a bowl of my dogs wet food out. My question is, without the benefit of video cameras how can I be certain the food is eaten by the Hog? Both my neighbours have cats! I put the food out quite late (around 10pm) I check the garden to see if he/she is around before going to bed. The food is always gone in the morning and there is usually a few poo deposits so I know the hog has been there.
ThanksAnnieS
hiya
Well done, just make sure no bread and milk.
Without a camera you can’t be certain if it a cat, mouse or might I say a rat.
I buy Spikes dried hedgehog food or kitten biscuit, mix it with chopped peanuts, chopped dried banana, sunflower hearts and a few as a treat dried mealworms. Not too many as these can effect bone growth.
You could make a feeding station like a couple of bricks high a piece of wood on top weighted with a plant pot. Make a tunnel in the same way large enough for a hedgehog but too small for a cat and feed them in there. If it’s gone in the morning more than likely a hog.
If not a camera will give you hours of interesting viewing. Especially if you have hoglets.Hi Annie,
Welcome to the Forum!
If you don’t have a camera you could try either getting or making a footprint tunnel leading up to where the food is and see if there are any footprints other than hogs. More information here:
https://www.hedgehogstreet.org/footprint-tunnels/Hi deb
Chopped peanuts and sunflower hearts aren’t all that good for hogs either – they also don’t have a very good ratio of phosphorous to calcium. Not as bad as mealworms, but added together, not ideal, especially if the hog goes to another garden and eats similar stuff. Especially as they are known to hoover up what birds drop under feeders.
You might want to consider swapping your garnish of mealworms for calci-worms. They have a higher amount of calcium, as the name suggests. The jury is still out a bit, for me, as they are still quite new, so I would only use them as a ‘garnish’. I understand that the calcium level can vary according to what they are fed. So there is a chance that as they become more popular people may feed them rubbish (literally) to make them cheaper to produce and it might make the calcium level come down – so worth checking on the packaging what it says it is.
There is a useful chart attached to this feeding information re. calcium and phosphorous amounts in some foods.
http://www.valewildlife.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Feeding-wild-hedgehogs.pdf
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