Nottingham Sighting

[AlanB]

I have a hedgehog visiting my garden in the suburbs of Nottingham. I live on the border of Lenton Abbey and Beeston for anyone that knows the area. As far as I know there is just one hog who is visiting nightly. I have caught the hog on a trail camera several times and seen it once.

I have been leaving some food out each night and there is always a bit gone each morning. But I do have a couple of questions.

1) Is there any way to tell how many hedgehogs are visiting based on how much food they are eating? I have only ever seen one, but sometimes two bowls of food get eaten and sometimes only part of one. So I am wondering if there are one or two hedgehogs visiting.

2) My trail camera has picked up single visits both by a fox and a badger. I knew there were foxes in the area, but the badger was a surprise. I assume it would be best to not do anything to attract them to my garden if I want the hedgehog to keep visiting?

[steevo]

I’ve had a few badgers and they don’t seem to deter the hedgehogs although I don’t encourage badgers as they can cause damage, pull bird tables over etc.
The top two videos on this page show hog/badger encounters.

[AlanB]

So it turns out there are in fact at least two hedgehogs as I have now got both of them on camera at the same time. However one does seem to bully the other a bit and I am not sure how common that is amongst hedgehogs?

I was wondering if I spaced out where food is left for them would that help ensure they both get a fair share?

[Nic]

Hi AlanB

The hogs that have been around so far this year are mostly males and they do like to biff other males from time to time. (Although the females may be beginning to return now as well – which will probably make their behaviour even worse!) In previous years, I have noticed a bit of a hierarchy here, with one male that biffs just about any other male (other than the ones who are too small for him to think it’s worth bothering with!) and then some that get biffed, but do their fair share of biffing others lower down the ranks. Spacing the food is probably not going to make a lot of difference, but might work a bit in the very short term.

Re. your original questions about food. It isn’t really possible to tell numbers of hogs from how much food is eaten. Depends how much they are getting elsewhere, who else is eating the food, etc.

I wouldn’t want to encourage badgers into my garden. They may well deter the hogs from visiting. I have heard of people having hogs feeding next to badgers, but that is a very risky thing to do, because I have also heard of a badger in such circumstances turning on a hog and killing it. For the same reason I wouldn’t encourage foxes, as they have also been known to kill hedgehogs. Apparently certain foxes have learned to be quite clever about it. If your garden is well fenced, maybe you could make the entrance holes big enough for hogs but too small for badgers/foxes?

[AlanB]

Thanks.

I will look into what I can do to make it harder for badgers and foxes to get in. Even though I have no issue with them, I do want the hedgehogs to feel safe.

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