Fox and Hedgehogs
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We were given a camera trap by my son to help entertain us during lock down and it has been so interesting. We now know we have at least 3 hedgehogs visiting (seen at same time) and maybe more as hedgehogs are coming and going in the garden eating and drinking most of the night. We also have regular visits from a fox who seems to ignore the hogs and they ignore him/her. Fascinating watching the footage each morning.
I see foxes every now and then on my cameras (including one that was small enough to go through the 130x130mm Hedgehog Highway!) and on one occasion a fox turned up while a hedgehog was eating – it sniffed the hog and then they both carried on eating the food I’d put out!
I must admit, I’m addicted to getting the SD card out of the camera each morning to see what’s gone on!
Last night I had the trap camera pointed at the Hedgehog Highway in my side-gate, and it recorded 20 transits of hedgehogs, 3 of foxes, and one cat! The foxes must surely be cubs as I don’t think an adult could fit through a 130x130mm hole, and they don’t seem to have the bushy tail you’d expect.
Be aware that foxes do on occasion kill hedgehogs. Also cubs, in particular, might play with hedgehogs and damage their back legs.
If I had foxes around, I would try to create a secure place for the hogs to feed and not feed them beside foxes. Apparently the method foxes use to kill hogs is wait until they unroll and then pounce. If foxes and hogs are eating side by side, the hog will already be unrolled, so a sitting target should the fox decide to try hedgehog for a change.
I don’t know how the fox gets into our garden. He had dug and widenened our hedgehog highway to get in but we had blocked it up so a hedgehog could fit but not a fox. Foxes truly are cunning! He/she also does not seem to like the hedgehog food but goes for the sunflower seeds we leave out for the ground feeding birds.
We have noticed hedgehogs nudging and pushing each other quite some distance – all looks very agressive!Hi Linire
Yes, foxes seem quite clever at sqeezing through small spaces – cats and hogs. too! It’s quite amazing seeing the small spaces cats sometimes manage to squeeze into.
Yes, the male hogs can be quite intolerant of each other. They don’t really like having other male hogs in their personal space. One of the side effects of feeding is that we ‘encourage’ the hogs into closer proximity to each other than perhaps they might normally be, hence there is quite a lot of biffing, rolling up and shoving in those areas. It seems fairly harmless even though it initially looks quite alarming – they have all those spines to cushion them a bit.
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