Odd feeding habits

[Katos7]

So we recently started putting food out as we have previously seen hedgehogs and wanted to encourage them. Built a feeding station, put out a bowl of dry cat food and water and waited. The next morning, big surprise, everything licked clean! The exact same thing happened the next 3 nights. Then today, went to check and all the food, every last piece, had been carefully moved from the dry dish into the water dish and then left! Still not 100% sure it is a hedgehog visiting, I was just wondering if anyone else had ever experienced this? Seemed a little odd!

[steevo]

Everything licked clean sounds like a cat. Hogs are messy eaters with poor eyesight and will usually leave some remnants of food or do their business close by. If you don’t want to go to the expense of a trail camera you could try making a footprint tunnel to see who your visitors are.
I found it impossible to keep the cats away using cat food, I now put Ark dry hedgehog biscuits out in the open and the neighbourhood cats never show any interest.
As for the food being moved to the water dish I don’t know about that but I’ve never seen it in my garden.

[Williamc]

Hedgehog feeding habits never cease to amaze me. I have seen them do their “business” in the food dish and then proceed to eat from it. They’ve also moved their food dish several yards across the lawn but not eaten any of it. Sometimes they will eat the lot, other times they will throw the food everywhere but hardly eat any at all. I even watched one once that sat and looked at the food for nearly ten minutes and then walked off as if in a huff “i’m not eating that muck”.

They all have one thing in common though, they will never EVER say thank you.

[stef]

LOL William, you are so right – they are truly ungrateful beasts, even when you’ve saved their lives they repay you by pooing outside their cages, up the walls, in their food/water, under the carefully places newspaper – and that’s just over one night……

[Author]

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