Hoglet training??

[Oriana and Peter]

We are new to hedgies, and would love some feedback from anyone who might be able to shed some light on something that happened this evening.

We have two hedgehogs who visit regularly, and have been doing so for several weeks now, and we put hedgehog food and water out daily.

They are easily identifiable … “White Stripe” (so named because he had a white, stripey marking on his back when we first saw him – possibly paint from a fence!) is rather smaller, slower and more sedate. Hedgie 2 is paler in colour, more vigorous and active, and a little larger, although to us novices, they are both pretty big. We reckon that Hedgie 2 is quite a bit younger than White Stripe.

Then a week or so ago, we saw Hedgie 2 with a much smaller hedgehog (probably half his size). It was almost as if he was showing the little one “the ropes”, and we wondered if it was actually his mum!

The three of them generally come at different times in the evening.

Tonight, Hedgie 2 and the hoglet as we are now calling the small one, were out together, and Hedgie 2 was sort of circling around the hoglet, nudging him and almost poking at him. Testing him somehow. The hoglet was standing his ground, and kept turning and backing into the larger one. The interaction didn’t seem aggressive, but went on for several minutes until my husband went out … they froze and then scuttled away in different directions.

We’d love to know what may be going on here. We have a photo of all three of them, but don’t know how to post it!

Thank you for taking the time to read all this.

[stef]

Hedgie 2 is a male and the little one is a female. What you describe is typical hedgehog courting behaviour – it goes on for hours. Female hogs breed in their second year of life onward

Hedgehogs don’t live in ‘family units’. The hoglets will stay with mum for the first few weeks foraging and then they are on their own. Sometimes a youngster will hang around with it’s mum but usually just because females have a smaller area they live in, and if you are feeding them they may hang around. Usually gone by the following year though.

Hedgie 1 needs monitoring if it’s that slow as their may be an issue. However if it’s purposeful in it’s actions then don’t worry.

If you are ever concerned then contact the BHPS who’s number is on this site and get details of your nearest carer for a chat

[Oriana and Peter]

Dear Stef

Thanks so much for your clarification. The behaviour of the other two sounds to be exactly what we’ve seen, and it’s nice to hear that the smaller is a female and the larger one, a male. Good stuff 🙂

Hedgie 1 (who we call White Stripe), whilst more sedate, seems OK, and fairly purposeful. However, we will monitor him as you suggest.

We appreciate your reply.

O & P

[Coley]

We have noticed the opposite, we have quite a few feeding in our gardens and most seem to feed together quite amicably, but now and again a ‘juvenile’ will quite violently ‘nudge’ a bigger adult in the side.
The adult will then curl up, not completely and will relax after the juvenile gives up.
Just wondering if it could be the juveniles remembering ‘milking time’?

[Nic]

Hi Coley

I have always found that hoglets rule the roost at the feeding area and the adults, including large males will give way to them – although I don’t recall any actually rolling up. But it seems when they are young all adults are very tolerant – until they reach a certain size and then the gloves are off!

But what you describe sounds slightly different with the hoglet nudging the side of an adult. I suppose it’s possible it’s the hoglets mother and she’s trying to distance herself from it. It’s sometimes hard to know why things happen, especially when not seeing the actual behaviour. It’s also possible that it’s a precocious male nudging a female. In that case, I don’t imagine she would be that impressed!

Although when you say juvenile, I am assuming you mean a hoglet, but maybe you don’t?

[Author]

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