Visits
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I have had hedgehogs visiting for 2 years, I have 2 hedgehog houses but today I discovered something had ripped the cover off the top of one & pulled out some of the straw, I also have a fox visiting, could it be done by the fox?
Sounds quite likely, Lyjema, although it could have been a joint effort with fox pulling the roof off and hog pulling out some of the straw – difficult to say. But hogs are sometimes quite fussy about what they have in their houses. Equally fox could have been trying to get hold of what was in the box.
It may be considered unusual, but foxes will on occasion kill hedgehogs and some individuals apparently become quite expert at it. It is always safest to be wary and, if foxes are around, if possible feed/house, the hogs somewhere foxes can’t easily get at them.
It was a vixen, I caught her on camera sniffing round the straw then she weed on it, today I have completely cleaned out the house, including 9 fat ticks, hopefully it is now foxproof. The hedgies will have their food in feeding stations tonight, no food for Mrs Fox.
Oh dear, I feel quite sorry for poor Mrs. Fox now! If she has been used to getting food there, it probably wouldn’t harm to let her have some, just maybe in her own place away from the hogs. She may well have her own youngsters to feed. I know some people feed them side by side, but it isn’t a risk I would want to take and I don’t think it’s a good idea for hogs to get too habituated to a predator, so I would want to keep them apart, if possible. It could be argued, though, that she is less likely to be interested in the hogs if she is getting some food elsewhere. But if she is a newcomer, maybe you’d rather not encourage her anyway?
9 fat ticks – yuk! You may have already, but it’s a good idea to wash the boxes out with boiling water, especially if there have been ticks, as they may have laid eggs there.
The hogs can go inside their feeding station, the fox has only appeared recently & is eating the sunflower hearts from a bird table I have on my patio, the hogs eat mealworms from it but I will remove it tonight & put all hog food inside & some sunflower hearts further over for Mrs Fox. I couldn’t wash the house with boiling water as it is made from fibre with a wood base, but I did put a new floor in, the ticks are dead now, the house is near the bottom of the garden away from the patio but Mrs Fox still found it, she looks very healthly & is probably getting food from neighbours who feed the birds. This is all in a suburb of a big city, we are so lucky to have all this wildlife, even the grey squirrels!
I have to say – I’m not a big fan of the fox / hedgehog combination. Whilst foxes don’t predate hedgehogs as such – they do treat them as sport, chasing them and biting their back legs as they try to run away – and do have a tendency to terrorism them. certainly the rescue that I work alongside has seen a significant increase in the number of hedgehogs suffering injuries from fox attacks on them and has stopped replacing them in these areas once the hogs have been fixed – this is possibly down to the overall increase in fox numbers in urban areas? foxes also carry mange – and this is bad news for hedgehogs and our domestic pets, who can pick it up from the areas that foxes inhabit.
I would be inclined to try and keep the foxes away from hedgehog habits wherever possible.
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