Hedgehog eating strange thing
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I have just viewed my trail camera from last night (3/6/22). After visiting the “restaurant” Hoghouse, my resident Hog then went and inspected the second Hoghouse which I have filled with dry leaves as a maternity house. It then came out and started eating a pile of dog hair that I had put out for the birds to use as nesting material. It ate quite a lot and then seemed to be, either wiping some hair onto it’s side or just licking it’s side. Has anyone seen this behaviour before? I don’t want to cause any upset to my Hog so, just in case, I have removed the rest of the hair.
Hi The Hogfinder
That’s interesting – I haven’t seen hogs eating dog fur before, but they are opportunistic feeders and so would be likely to eat a dead animal – so may get fur as well in those circumstances.
The licking it’s side, sounds as if it may have been self annointing. They produce frothy saliva and flick it on to their sides – sometimes getting themselves into seemingly impossible positions in the process. The reasons for it are not fully understood, but they sometimes do it after smelling or licking something with an unusual (to them) smell. So it makes sense in the circumsance you describe. If that is what the hog was doing, you were lucky to see it. It seems not all hogs self annoint and not everyone will see it even if they are regular hog watchers. It would be interesting to know if the same hog was to self annoint again.
It was probably just as well to remove the hair – probably don’t want the hog eating too much of it!
Let us know if you see anything else interesting.
Good luck and happy hog watching!
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