soon

getting one of the 'creature cams' you see used on the tv wildlife programmes

got a very unwelcome 'visitor'

at 6.45am today the blackbirds/magpies etc were going mad

looked out of the window and there was a bloody fox about 12' from the kitchen window eating mealworms/suet pellets and peanuts!

I hear foxes at night as my house backs onto open fields but until now they have never to my knowledge (or my Labradors) been in the garden

knowing foxes as I unfortunately do once they have found a food source they keep coming back - and the bds kill and eat hedgehogs

i'm not having that so time for action - unfortunately can't use a snare/trap because of cats

actually foxes and badgers are the only natural predators of hedgehogs

foxes have learned how to grab hold of and maim or kill hedgehogs

as follows

a) fox pounces on hedgehog which curls up on contact

b) fox freezes and stays still about 2' away from the rear of the hedgehog

c) hedgehog hearing nothing, thinks its safe (sight is poor so smell/hearing are their main senses) and slowly uncurls - as it puts its back legs out to run the fox springs and grabs the back legs and bites thus disabling the hedgehog

d) eat at leisure going for the soft underside first

I can say 100% that this hedgehog response is correct - I 've seen how they respond to my Labrador - but she never tries to hurt them - well apart from a lick!

Just collected two female hedgehogs from a rescue center for release into our garden, have built a hedgehog house and got meal worms and kitten dried food to try and encourage them to stay in the garden will feed them every night.

I once found a very underweight hedgehog in my garage so I ended up taking it on a 40 mile hoon to St TiddyWinkles to ensure it survived the winter.

I'm not sure it's hearing survived Leftfield, Leftism that I was playing at '11' on the stereo though.

Going to miss these little fellas if they leave the garden, releasing them tonight but have two boxes and a feeding station so will have food left out if they want it.

No havent weighed them, got them from a rescue so should I weigh them and what should they be ? also we have been feeding them with kitten go cat dried food in a shallow bowl, and scatter meal worms around the enclosure so they have to work for them, and of course a shallow bowl of water. how much go cat should we give them ? its all gone next day apart from some crumbs.
got to say I have never seen so much poo out of two little critters in one night, obviously clean it up every morning so they have a clean start for the night.
PS they are outside now in the garden in a fenced enclosure and the hedge hog boxes are backed into the hedge so they have a run around on grass and I have made a low minature table which covers the food so they can eat under cover, they are brilliant little creatures I am going to remove the enclosure at the weekend.

Hi folks
I collected two rescue HH from a wildlife rescue centre Sat 11th May I have built an enclosure with chicken wire and made two boxes from plans on the RSPCA site and have put them in the garden, we were told that they were two females so I made two boxes so that they could have there own box as they are territorial, well every night I feed them with go cat kitten dried food and a load of meal worms and water, hoping that they will stay around when i remove the chicken wire.
we always see the one out, but not the other, so we have just checked the boxes and the one box is empty but the other is packed full with shredded newspaper and some moss that they have collected, I put the newspaper in both boxes so they have dragged it out of one and into the other I moved some of the paper to check that they are both ok and guess what, I saw TWO little baby HH about 2" long I'm totally over the bloody moon, question now to any experts do I now feed them with anything extra to boost the diet any help would be appreciated as I want to give the little ones a good start
thanks, from a new dad with twins

Going to extend the enclosure tomorrow to give them a bit more space, just wondering what food to give them, now that mother is feeding the young I will try and take a photo in the next few days when the weather picks up a bit, never seen tiny baby HH before.

Had a good look in the box this morning and found 3 baby hedge hogs, not two as 1st thought, we only looked because one of them doesn't come out until about 11pm and never out at 6am when we get up, with this hot weather wanted to make sure they were ok, blimy have they grown in two weeks, so the choice of food must be good, have a couple of other photos to post