courtship
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last night we were incredibly lucky to watch and hear hedgehog courtship in our back garden. It started around 11,45pm last night and the male was just circling round the female until 3.45am, the female wasn’t having any of it tho, she just kept her face to the male all the time, im pretty sure the female was the one making all the noise.
This all went on pretty close to one of my security cameras under an old garden bench and behind a couple of planters so a bit obscured but nice that i caught it on camera 🙂the birds were singing before the male gave up trying, and he then just went and grabbed a snack and a drink before running down the garden to the new hog house i had made only 2 days previous 🙂
The female had a long drink when he was at a good enough distance away and waited until he was gone before she had a feed. she too then went to the new hog house only to find it already occupied and then crossed the garden to where i have lots of garden waste and rocks from my ongoing garden clean.
Guess I have to be careful today when cleaning more as she is under it all somewhere 🙂
I am going to build a 3rd house today as it looks like I now have 3 resident hogs and a 4th that visits most evenings. Both houses I already made are now occupied 🙂
Once i built the 3rd house, would it be ok to put it close to one of the others ?
I’d ideally like to put it in the same corner of the garden under a big bush with the last one I made, how likely would it be for one of the other hogs would use it being close to another occupied house ?Hi mcollins
Lucky you having males and females there – the courtship dance sounds promising, but as you discovered they can go on for hours and often don’t come to anything. Sometimes makes you wonder how they ever manage to produce hoglets! But you are right, it’s the females who make the ‘huffing’ noise. Hopefully that or another male will find favour with her another time.
I have heard of others who have successfully had hog houses near to each other. The thing to avoid is a feeding station too close – might put off a prospective Mother if there are too many hogs coming and going. But, the male may not stay too long – they often change their choice of sleeping places in the Summer. So he may stay a day or few before moving on, but may return again later in the Summer if the box is still free. But extra hog houses are always useful, even if only for short stays. Fingers crossed you’ll get hoglets in one of them.
Sounds like you have some lucky hogs there! Good luck with them all and happy hog watching!
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