Hedgehogs

[clarkmagpie]

Hi,

We have been lucky enough to have a regular hedgehog visisting our garden.
I'd like to get him/her a little house at the bottom of the garden,

Can anyone recommend a good hedgehog house.
Also anything to entice them into it and want to stay there?
Any food to recommend?
I was thinking about a tub of meal worms to get started with!

I tried cat food last summer and had no interest.
There is fresh water available.

Also last year they were very fond of a fruit salad, especially water melon.

[Nightmare]

I’ve got two of these but might be a bit OTT to be fair. You def want something built with a bit of longevity built in cos it’ll usually take a while for one to move in. Def with a roof like this one I would suggest as it makes it very weatherproof

https://dingoshop.co.uk/products/di-hedgehog-house...

Food wise……peanuts and mealworms v popular with mine but they’ll also eat dried dog and cat food. Actually now I think about it they seem quite happy to eat pretty much anything. Never thought of offering them fruit salad tho…might try it

[nute]

Please don't feed mealworms to hedgehogs.

They are very low in calcium and hence the hedgehogs body leaches the calcium required from their bones causing metabolic bone disease. This leads to brittle bones and poor health. Peanuts are not very good for them either sadly.

https://www.herbiehedgehogrescue.com/harmful-effec...

Our local hog rescue reckoned kitten food or similar plus always leaving water out for them.

[Nightmare]

Please don’t keep spreading this particular bit of misinformation. If you ONLY feed hedgehogs mealworms - which is what has happened with rescues and led to this belief then yes. Otherwise it isn’t an issue. A hedgehogs natural diet is 80% beetles and their larval stages and that’s exactly what mealworms are. Same with peanuts or anything else. Your average hog does about 2 miles a night foraging, so a single pit stop with junk food really won’t be an issue

This bit of advice is one of the best examples of how the internet can spread and cement stuff that is just wrong!

Edited by Nightmare on Saturday 25th May 21:41

[Evanivitch]

Supposedly, the wire and twigs hedgehog houses causes issues with hogs backing out of the houses and getting stuck.

[nute]

Nightmare said:

Your average hog does about 2 miles a night foraging, so a single pit stop with junk food really won’t be an issue

This bit of advice is one of the best examples of how the internet can spread and cement stuff that is just wrong!

Edited by Nightmare on Saturday 25th May 21:41

How do you know what other people might be putting out for them? How do you know its a single pit stop? Is metabolic bone disease some sort of conspiracy theory... ?

Are you a vet, or are you in some other way qualified to make the comments you do? If so im always happy to learn ... but if not I'll follow the advice of the countless rescue centres who dont recommend feeding mealworms because they have had hogs with MBD bought in to them, and I would suggest others do so too.

[Slow.Patrol]

It is quite easy to make one from an old pallet

https://thethriftysquirrels.co.uk/hedgehog-house-b...

[Sticks.]

My local pet food shop has hedgehog food. Dog food seemed popular, from what I saw, and they spend time going through the remaining bird food.

I would imagine the location of any 'house' would be as important as anything.

[Flumpo]

Unfortunately ‘our’ hedgehog that had a nest in our garden got run over. But he had no interest in the cat food I tried leaving out. All I got was half a dozen different cats every night on the camera.

[blueg33]

The hedgehogs in our garden like dry cat food

Our local rescue centre is quite definite on avoiding feeding mealworms. I work on the principle that they know what they are talking about.

[Louis Balfour]

Last July, a baby hedgehog came into my office and planted his front feet on the filing cabinet, whilst looking at me. The day before, I had seen a sick adult hog in the garden moving very slowly and looking rather sad.

I am not sure what the ACTUAL explanation for the behaviour was, but I read into it that help was required.

So, I stocked up on cat food (tinned) and erected "HogCam"







It seemed that there was a litter of small hogs, who came nightly for the food. No sign of the bigger hog.

I was mindful about not encouraging dependence upon me. I was not intending to become a food bank for hogs. So I tapered off over a week and they went elsewhere, I hope to forage.

It was fascinating to watch the footage each morning. The main take home being, hedgehogs have no table manners.

Edited by Louis Balfour on Monday 27th May 08:51

[Nightmare]

nute said:

How do you know what other people might be putting out for them? How do you know its a single pit stop? Is metabolic bone disease some sort of conspiracy theory... ?

Are you a vet, or are you in some other way qualified to make the comments you do? If so im always happy to learn ... but if not I'll follow the advice of the countless rescue centres who dont recommend feeding mealworms because they have had hogs with MBD bought in to them, and I would suggest others do so too.

Youre absolutely right and the whole tone of my post was poor so sorry. Not feeding hedgehogs mealworms definitely isn’t an issue so it’s a pointless thing for me to get irritated by!

I work in human and animal health and whilst not a vet I do lecture at the RVC from time to time - on the subject of how to analyse and use clinical trials properly, and the dangers of healthcare misinformation. I’m also a long term reptile rescuer and MBD is a significant issue there and something I would like to consider myself pretty expert on. There is def not a conspiracy but this is just an interesting example of how the internet can take something which is absolutely true, but then apply it incorrectly. Not a huge issue in animal health that I know of but this sort of thing has created a really significant problem in human health regards the pregnancy food list and now associated asthma and allergy issues.

So ironically I’m then guilty of reacting to this bit of info like it actually matters so apologies

[nute]

No worries.

Ive been trying to nurture the hoggies in our garden for several years and have dealt with number of rescue places when they have been found wandering around our village in daylight obviously in distress. Its them that say avoid MW's.

There are places which sell high calcium MW's (fed on something high in Ca?) but I was also advised against them too, apparently they may not have the Ca content advertised. Im only saying what I've been told .

[The Gauge]

I'd be sure to weigh down any hog house with something heavy like paving slabs so that foxes/badgers cant tip it over and get to the hogs inside.

[pinchmeimdreamin]

We have a few regular visitors to ours so I knocked together a few Hog Houses from pallets.
Having 6 cats and 2 dogs we were shocked they decided to stay regularly.

We put out dried kitten food and Calciworms for them. And fresh water.

We love seeing what they get up to.

[MesoForm]

I bought a nice wooden house for them, put kitten biscuits down, all seemed to be going OK until the rats found it So I've stopped feeding them as I don't really want to encourage the rats but they still come into the garden which is nice. I encourage creepy crawlies by leaving bits of the garden wild, having a load of rotting wood (see second clip below) and having a big bird bath / tiny pond for them to drink from.
Couple of clips of them (from a cheap Amazon trail cam)

I've since put some bricks to the right of the step to make his life easier and also put a ramp elsewhere he could use. Another hog uses the ramp but one still prefers to clamber up...

[Mezzanine]

pinchmeimdreamin said:

We have a few regular visitors to ours so I knocked together a few Hog Houses from pallets.
Having 6 cats and 2 dogs we were shocked they decided to stay regularly.

We put out dried kitten food and Calciworms for them. And fresh water.

We love seeing what they get up to.

Palatial!

Excellent work.