Recommend me a Hedgehog Home

[DrRobotnik]

Hi. I want to get a pre-made hedgehog home for the garden.

I’ve been doing the usual research and can’t decide on which one to go for. It seems a lot of them seem easy for cats to enter – including more expensive ones and also ones that claim to be predator proof – in fact one of those looks to be the worst of all with a really large entrance hole. One wonders if any of these things have actually ever been product tested at all – which is a bit of a disgrace really.

Anyway, can anyone here recommend one that a cat couldn’t easily get into?

[stef]

Jim does fabulous hog houses – Bespoke Bird Boxes 01942 235273
He’s also on ebay

[alanfrew]

I have bought 4 of these on Amazon. Reasonable quality and you can take the roof off which makes for easy cleaning. House.

Not had any cats or other non hedgehogs try and get into them.

[Nic]

Hi Dr. Robotnik

Cats probably wouldn’t have any reason to go into a hog house, if it was being used for nesting/sleeping in. The problem mainly arises if they are used as feeding boxes when the cats can smell the food. So cats would probably not have been considered to be a predator of hedgehogs.

Feeding boxes are a different matter and most, if they said they were cat proof, I wouldn’t believe it, as it depends on the cat and usually some added precautions need to be taken.

There are so many different hog houses, but I agree with alanfrew that ones that you can take the roof off are easier for cleaning. But also those where there is a baffle opposite the entrance so that there is an immediate left or right turn seem better to me than ones that have a ‘corridor’ straight from the entrance.

Good luck. I hope you manage to find something that suits you and the hogs.

[DrRobotnik]

Unfortunately the hedgehog home you linked to is out of stock. But I was going to ask if that particular one comes on ‘stand legs’, as I have read that a lot of these have a cheap chipboard bottom that can rot quite soon as it’s sat on wet soil/undergrowth.
Any thoughts?

[Nic]

Not sure about chipboard floors. Mine have wooden ones, which I would have thought were better for hedgehogs and when cleaning, etc. But I put mine on bricks to raise them a bit off the ground. Hogs can normally climb the height of an ordinary house brick, but you could give them a bit of a step with offcuts of wood, if necessary.

[DrRobotnik]

Hi. I may as well post in here rather than start a new thread as it’s related.

I’ve got a hog house and was thinking that any hog pee will no doubt lessen the life of the wooden floor. Do you think I should just leave it as it is or is there some kind of liner I can buy, or would lining it with newspaper make things better?

If a hog does take up residence then obviously I won’t be cleaning it out till next spring time.

[Nic]

Hi Dr Robotnik

If you are using it as a feeding box, then it may be useful to line it with newspaper – if you wish. Although feed boxes should be cleaned out more regularly than nesting boxes – with boiling water to reduce any impact of external parasites, so it probably isn’t strictly necessary. It’s really a personal choice.

If you are hoping for the hog house to be used for a nest, then in my experience hogs don’t normally poo, etc. in their nests (in the wild). The thing to remember is that a hog house, to a hog, is just a structure within which it might be convenient to make a nest. They are not like pet cages which pets live in pretty much all the time, so don’t have any choice but to relieve themselves in their cages. If the hogs are building a hibernating nest in a box, for instance, the floor would be covered anyway, with nesting material. I imagine putting something un-natural there could potentially just become a nuisance to a hog.

If a hog is hibernating in there it’s metabolism will slow right down, so that it probably won’t need to pee or poo, until it emerges from hibernation.

[Author]

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