We had a hog last year and looked after it by providing it food and shelter .we have prepped our hedgehog 🦔 area ready for spring and keeping our fingers crossed that we get more this year 👍
I am in East Anglia. Last autumn I placed a ready made hedgehog house under a privet hedge towards the end of my garden. It was occupied quite quickly. As the late winter approached I noticed the entrance began to be filled up with leaves etc. which made the hedgehog's front door. Now late April 21 and the door filling has gradually been removed. The blocking leaves etc must have been about 6" deep as I can now see there is a nest towards the back of the house. I always have fresh water available but have put some hedgehog food out on occasion to help the hedgehog while coming out of hibernation. Hope he/she is alright. Will keep watching.
That's absolutely brilliant. You cannot believe just how much nesting material a hedgehog can cram inside a box - it is incredible - and yet somehow they still find a way of burrowing in and out through all the clutter.
Just found this channel , wanted more information as we have a regular visitor who we've called Horace that comes to the garden every night. At first he was feeding on food that fell from various bird feeders but I got him a good quality specific hedgehog food now along with fresh water every night.Think he might be living under some conifers we have but not 100% sure... Anyway Mike on this channel doesn't disappoint. Very informative information . Thank you! Keep the videos coming....
I currently have 3 hogs each night in the garden: 2 small (assumed to be female) which live in separate boxes, and a large visiting hog (assumed to be male). There is some fighting and huffing/puffing every night for hours so I’m expecting my first batch of hoglets some time soon. Sadly, I found my first dead hog on the a road early this morning - so very sad. I moved it to under a hedge out of respect but now regret that as I think people in that area should see there are hogs about and prompt them to be more vigilant when driving. Keep up the great work Mike.
Thank you for taking the time to leave a comment, Nick. I'm sorry to hear that you found a dead hedgehog - that must be extremely upsetting, given just how much lovely activity you have happening in your garden. And I do hope you will have hedgehogs in the garden too! Thank you again for the comments
Amazing all-night party was in progress this morning at 2:40 am! There was one baby rabbit and two hedgehogs at the water bowl when along comes one other, small hedgehog I hadn't seen before. They're still eating well at all hours. We also had a squirrel up on the bird feeder that was out at he same time! I suspect he/she was just being a nuisance. I've been lucky this year with at least three at all times for the past 18 months, however we did find two dead on the road in the village in autumn, but thus far this spring, we've been lucky. We are desperately trying to get new signs in our small, conservation village to get people to slow down. It's very hard to create a hedgehog path when all our house boundaries are stone walls that border a village road.
That is absolutely a problem when the barriers are stone walls. It takes a very great community effort to want to make holes through those very big stone walls, but if you try to get as many of your neighbours and village residents involved as possible, your whole village could become a great advertisement for community conservation.
we have nightly visitors from 3-8 that is presuming they are individual hedgehogs. I go by size mostly. Also last week there were2 couples, making 4 altogether, coming every night for a romantic huffing session :-) I am beginning to recognise them without marking them at all. they do get quite thirsty good to see them drinking quite a bit. there are fewer visiting this week. Just glad to see them in the garden.. I do use a camera to monitor them :-)
Sounds brilliant and so good to hear that you have a good water supply that they are enjoying. I'm sure you will start getting used to their individual personalities and recognise them more and more just by seeing them, without any markings. They have such big personalities
We are seeing up to 4 a night visiting for food. We have 3 hog houses (two new ones this year)They go in and out of all the houses but the older house is occupied, it seems, about every other night - sometimes by one hog or even two. Also there is one hog who likes an hours rest in it around 1.00am! he did this last year as well. Also, like yourself a lot of huffing and puffing goes on.
I sometimes have the midnight snoozer that pops into one of my houses before moving off again an hour or so later after a quick snooze. Right now there's no regular pattern at all to my hedgehogs staying or not - it just seems a bit random and each night a little bit different
Hi Mike I have around 8-10 hogs that come and visit me,they are especially thirsty at the moment due to this dry weather so yes water is more important than food it seems currently,loads of courting couples,last night it went on for 2 hours
Yes, I think water is often easily overlooked, but so important, and this spell of weather without any rain must be having an impact on lots of our wildlife species. I've not ever seen a mouse share the hedgehog's water bowl, so even the smallest of my garden residents are finding it thirsty work.
We had one regular visitor since mid march (we have a feeding station and bowls of water) but last night the camera caught 2 visitors! There was no argy-bargy in fact they seemed ok with each other although after they went their separate ways, the one larger one came back alone, huffing quite loudly and drinking some more. In between this a mouse is seen coming g and going, drinking and sharing in some of the kitten biscuits left for the hedgehog. In the morning the camera captured a magpie dropping some seeded bread into the water bowl and then eating it. Yesterday was a busy day for wildlife! Love the video, keep up the good work :)
Hi Phil, Thank you so much for taking the time to leave a comment. It's wonderful to hear how busy your garden is. I've seen magpies come to the hedgehog food bowl in past years and take the biscuits that the hedgehogs didn't have - they are such a clever bird, I think we can easily overlook just how intelligent they are. I hope your two visitors return more regularly
@@HedgehogsHollow they are very intelligent. Must have had activity again last night as our bowls are empty ..but my camera batteries died so missed it! Will try again tonight. All the best.
Two hedgehogs were 'courting' outside my back door for a long time last night. At least 3 visit garden each night. They have been inside hog homes too (captured on nature cameras). Happy hog watch! H
That is brilliant to hear - and I am sure you were "hearing" the courtship too as it can be very noisy with the huffing. Really great that you have 3 visiting, that's excellent
Here in Niedersachsen/ Germany the first hedgehog in the is awake yesterday night. The hedgehogs I care in my house are ready to go wild. But there isn't enough insects jet. They must wait a little bit. Liebe Grüße aus Deutschland 🦔
Hello Uta, Thank you for your comments - that's so interesting to hear how the hedgehogs are so late out of hibernation in your area, but are completely out and about here. Vielen Dank für Ihre Kommentare
Thanks for the Videos. I have 2 Hedgehog houses in my small garden and everyday I put fresh water and cat food inside. I have one visiting and it comes everyday only for food. How I wish that Hedgehogs could live in our Garden! But it has been more than half a year and nothing happens.
@@EmziesCoolVideos thank for the tip! I had a food station last year, but because of the cats I put the food directly in the hedgehog houses, which have a separate wall inside to avoid other animals. There are still a couple of months until November. Hopefully it works with a food station this year!
It's wonderful that you're putting food out, but as Emzie said, by putting food inside the house you're making it a feeding station rather than a residence. Keep food, water and sleeping accommodation separate and hopefully the hedgehog's will take up residence in your house, not just take advantage of the food and water you're leaving out.
@@HedgehogsHollow Thank you for the answer. You’re totally right. I’ll prepare a separate feeding station and hopefully I’ll have the lovely wild animals in my garden this year.
I'm a recent newcomer to the UK and am enthusiastically learning about potential visitors to our Carlisle garden. How would I know whether there are hedgehogs in our vicinity? We are fortunate to back onto a park with shrubs along the fenceline and I'm keen to try setting up a hedgehog feeding/sleeping or nesting station to encourage them and help them. The garden itself has no plantings (it's a rental). Great channel. By the way, am I detecting a South African accent? 🙂
Hello Anne, Welcome to the UK and to Hedgehog's Hollow. Yes, guilty as charged, there is a South African accent, though it's been nearly 20 years since I arrived. I had a quick look at bighedgehogmap.org/ the Hedgehog Mapping website run by Hedgehog Street, and there seem to be a number of hedgehog sightings reported all around Carlisle. I'd use this resource as your first port of call to identify if there are any sightings near your home. And even if there aren't don't despair. Provided you have access for hedgehogs and provide them some food and especially water, the last element is patience, and I'm sure they will find you. By providing them a house too, you can hopefully establish a resident and bring that hedgehog population in to your area and garden. If you don't have a trail camera, you can place a small twig across the entrance point and monitor if that stick moves - if it doesn, that's a good indicator you have a visitor. Hopefully you'll also see the food and water be consumed.
I am learning so much from your videos but have a couple of questions. This is my first hedgehog who eats all the food I leave out each night and drinks from a number of water bowls around the garden. My garden is very small but I have placed the house in a very quiet corner under the fig tree. I think it’s occupied as all the straw, cardboard and dried leaves disappear overnight. Q1: What do I do about feeding when on holiday? Q2: If I increase the height under the side gate how does one stop the cats getting in as I do not like cats?! Thanks again for the brilliant videos.
Yes, feeding them while on holiday can be a difficult situation. But remember - what we provide them should in theory be a supplement to what is naturally available to them. Also, they roam extensively at night and won't be restricted to your own garden. So on that basis I think you will be OK to not leave food out while on holiday - surplus food will only get mouldy and attract other kinds of visitors that you may not want at all. Leave out your normal amount, and if you're away know that your hedgehog visitor will find food elsewhere to make up for what you're not leaving out. As far as cats are concerned, I'd suggest making the food available to the hedgehogs in a feeding station that the cats cannot get to. I suspect that cats will manage to get over fences regardless of the size of the opening, but if the food isn't accessible to them, then that makes it perhaps less attractive to them in the first place. So make the opening larger for your hedgehogs and then restrict the food.
We have Hedgehogs. We have been getting them for years. Behind our garage we have a den room that doesn’t have a door attached. My son tiedye in there. Last week he left some plastic sheeting in a corner that should of been moved. The other day I went in there( don’t normally) to my surprise a large Hedgehog was fast asleep within the plastic sheeting. So I have ordered a hedgehog home to put in there. I was quite upset because it could of suffocated in that plastic. This morning I went to check and it wasn’t there. We must move plastic sheeting straight away. Could I just ask. Is it ok for me to put leaves as bedding in the Hedgehog House in case it comes back to sleep in it?.... or should I use Straw or something else for its bedding?......
Hello Carolyne, Putting a hedgehog house out for your visiting hedgehog is a great idea. And yes, you absolutely can put some bedding into the house - though don't fill it, just cover the floor with leaves, hay or straw. Make sure there is bedding available in your garden too - natural bedding in the form of fallen leaves will do, or supplement with straw or hay. Any visitor making use of the house will very quickly make themselves at home.
I have two hedgehogs coming into the garden each night. I leave food and water and they certainly drink a lot. I have two houses one which is new. I have a question though, the other house was occupied all winter and the hog did not hibernate. It was coming out most nights even in the snow to eat and drink. Since it has warmed up he has not been seen. Would you open the house and check as I have a feeling that he may have died inside.
HI Ken, It's possible that your winter resident has simply moved on in the spring looking for a new, summer home. That's very common behaviour and a possible explanation for him disappearing. How long though have you not seen the hedgehog? Is it possible it left and hasn't returned? or is it possible it may have actually been a pregnant female?
@@HedgehogsHollow I don't think he/she has moved on as I banked up some leaves in front of the door and they have not been disturbed. I had a quick peek inside and it is still there. I did not try to wake it up as I believe it can kill them if they are hibernating.
It's not their natural preference to share, they generally are lone animals, but I have very often seen multiple hedgehogs share a single box overnight - in fact the most I have seen is 4 in a single box on one night. But that's not the norm - generally they choose to stay in their own house alone.
We had a hog last year and looked after it by providing it food and shelter .we have prepped our hedgehog 🦔 area ready for spring and keeping our fingers crossed that we get more this year 👍
I hope your hedgehog visitor has returned!
I am in East Anglia. Last autumn I placed a ready made hedgehog house under a privet hedge towards the end of my garden. It was occupied quite quickly. As the late winter approached I noticed the entrance began to be filled up with leaves etc. which made the hedgehog's front door. Now late April 21 and the door filling has gradually been removed. The blocking leaves etc must have been about 6" deep as I can now see there is a nest towards the back of the house. I always have fresh water available but have put some hedgehog food out on occasion to help the hedgehog while coming out of hibernation. Hope he/she is alright. Will keep watching.
That's absolutely brilliant.
You cannot believe just how much nesting material a hedgehog can cram inside a box - it is incredible - and yet somehow they still find a way of burrowing in and out through all the clutter.
Just found this channel , wanted more information as we have a regular visitor who we've called Horace that comes to the garden every night. At first he was feeding on food that fell from various bird feeders but I got him a good quality specific hedgehog food now along with fresh water every night.Think he might be living under some conifers we have but not 100% sure...
Anyway Mike on this channel doesn't disappoint. Very informative information . Thank you! Keep the videos coming....
Thank you, I am glad you found the information useful and helpful and welcome along - it's great to have you visiting the channel
I currently have 3 hogs each night in the garden: 2 small (assumed to be female) which live in separate boxes, and a large visiting hog (assumed to be male). There is some fighting and huffing/puffing every night for hours so I’m expecting my first batch of hoglets some time soon. Sadly, I found my first dead hog on the a road early this morning - so very sad. I moved it to under a hedge out of respect but now regret that as I think people in that area should see there are hogs about and prompt them to be more vigilant when driving. Keep up the great work Mike.
Thank you for taking the time to leave a comment, Nick.
I'm sorry to hear that you found a dead hedgehog - that must be extremely upsetting, given just how much lovely activity you have happening in your garden.
And I do hope you will have hedgehogs in the garden too!
Thank you again for the comments
we have a large male, probably full size, and a small female. The female is nesting in the house I built a couple of weeks ago. :-)
Fantastic - hopefully it won't be too long until she introduces you to her new hoglets
Amazing all-night party was in progress this morning at 2:40 am! There was one baby rabbit and two hedgehogs at the water bowl when along comes one other, small hedgehog I hadn't seen before. They're still eating well at all hours. We also had a squirrel up on the bird feeder that was out at he same time! I suspect he/she was just being a nuisance. I've been lucky this year with at least three at all times for the past 18 months, however we did find two dead on the road in the village in autumn, but thus far this spring, we've been lucky. We are desperately trying to get new signs in our small, conservation village to get people to slow down. It's very hard to create a hedgehog path when all our house boundaries are stone walls that border a village road.
That is absolutely a problem when the barriers are stone walls. It takes a very great community effort to want to make holes through those very big stone walls, but if you try to get as many of your neighbours and village residents involved as possible, your whole village could become a great advertisement for community conservation.
Thank you so much for your advice and getting back to me
we have nightly visitors from 3-8 that is presuming they are individual hedgehogs. I go by size mostly. Also last week there were2 couples, making 4 altogether, coming every night for a romantic huffing session :-) I am beginning to recognise them without marking them at all. they do get quite thirsty good to see them drinking quite a bit. there are fewer visiting this week. Just glad to see them in the garden.. I do use a camera to monitor them :-)
Sounds brilliant and so good to hear that you have a good water supply that they are enjoying.
I'm sure you will start getting used to their individual personalities and recognise them more and more just by seeing them, without any markings. They have such big personalities
We are seeing up to 4 a night visiting for food. We have 3 hog houses (two new ones this year)They go in and out of all the houses but the older house is occupied, it seems, about every other night - sometimes by one hog or even two. Also there is one hog who likes an hours rest in it around 1.00am! he did this last year as well. Also, like yourself a lot of huffing and puffing goes on.
I sometimes have the midnight snoozer that pops into one of my houses before moving off again an hour or so later after a quick snooze.
Right now there's no regular pattern at all to my hedgehogs staying or not - it just seems a bit random and each night a little bit different
Hi Mike I have around 8-10 hogs that come and visit me,they are especially thirsty at the moment due to this dry weather so yes water is more important than food it seems currently,loads of courting couples,last night it went on for 2 hours
Yes ours are really thirsty as well
Yes, I think water is often easily overlooked, but so important, and this spell of weather without any rain must be having an impact on lots of our wildlife species.
I've not ever seen a mouse share the hedgehog's water bowl, so even the smallest of my garden residents are finding it thirsty work.
We had one regular visitor since mid march (we have a feeding station and bowls of water) but last night the camera caught 2 visitors! There was no argy-bargy in fact they seemed ok with each other although after they went their separate ways, the one larger one came back alone, huffing quite loudly and drinking some more. In between this a mouse is seen coming g and going, drinking and sharing in some of the kitten biscuits left for the hedgehog. In the morning the camera captured a magpie dropping some seeded bread into the water bowl and then eating it. Yesterday was a busy day for wildlife! Love the video, keep up the good work :)
Hi Phil,
Thank you so much for taking the time to leave a comment.
It's wonderful to hear how busy your garden is.
I've seen magpies come to the hedgehog food bowl in past years and take the biscuits that the hedgehogs didn't have - they are such a clever bird, I think we can easily overlook just how intelligent they are.
I hope your two visitors return more regularly
@@HedgehogsHollow they are very intelligent. Must have had activity again last night as our bowls are empty ..but my camera batteries died so missed it! Will try again tonight. All the best.
Two hedgehogs were 'courting' outside my back door for a long time last night. At least 3 visit garden each night. They have been inside hog homes too (captured on nature cameras). Happy hog watch! H
That is brilliant to hear - and I am sure you were "hearing" the courtship too as it can be very noisy with the huffing.
Really great that you have 3 visiting, that's excellent
Here in Niedersachsen/ Germany the first hedgehog in the is awake yesterday night. The hedgehogs I care in my house are ready to go wild. But there isn't enough insects jet. They must wait a little bit.
Liebe Grüße aus Deutschland 🦔
Hello Uta,
Thank you for your comments - that's so interesting to hear how the hedgehogs are so late out of hibernation in your area, but are completely out and about here.
Vielen Dank für Ihre Kommentare
They are late at all. Also give birth late. That's a big, big problem here. I had 12 hedgehogs with 77- 180 g in November.
Thanks for the Videos. I have 2 Hedgehog houses in my small garden and everyday I put fresh water and cat food inside. I have one visiting and it comes everyday only for food. How I wish that Hedgehogs could live in our Garden! But it has been more than half a year and nothing happens.
You wont get a hedgehog to sleep in a house that you put food in,food must be kept away from a hedgehog house as it can attract predators
@@EmziesCoolVideos thank for the tip! I had a food station last year, but because of the cats I put the food directly in the hedgehog houses, which have a separate wall inside to avoid other animals. There are still a couple of months until November. Hopefully it works with a food station this year!
It's wonderful that you're putting food out, but as Emzie said, by putting food inside the house you're making it a feeding station rather than a residence.
Keep food, water and sleeping accommodation separate and hopefully the hedgehog's will take up residence in your house, not just take advantage of the food and water you're leaving out.
@@HedgehogsHollow Thank you for the answer. You’re totally right. I’ll prepare a separate feeding station and hopefully I’ll have the lovely wild animals in my garden this year.
I'm a recent newcomer to the UK and am enthusiastically learning about potential visitors to our Carlisle garden. How would I know whether there are hedgehogs in our vicinity? We are fortunate to back onto a park with shrubs along the fenceline and I'm keen to try setting up a hedgehog feeding/sleeping or nesting station to encourage them and help them. The garden itself has no plantings (it's a rental).
Great channel. By the way, am I detecting a South African accent? 🙂
Hello Anne, Welcome to the UK and to Hedgehog's Hollow.
Yes, guilty as charged, there is a South African accent, though it's been nearly 20 years since I arrived.
I had a quick look at bighedgehogmap.org/ the Hedgehog Mapping website run by Hedgehog Street, and there seem to be a number of hedgehog sightings reported all around Carlisle. I'd use this resource as your first port of call to identify if there are any sightings near your home.
And even if there aren't don't despair. Provided you have access for hedgehogs and provide them some food and especially water, the last element is patience, and I'm sure they will find you.
By providing them a house too, you can hopefully establish a resident and bring that hedgehog population in to your area and garden.
If you don't have a trail camera, you can place a small twig across the entrance point and monitor if that stick moves - if it doesn, that's a good indicator you have a visitor. Hopefully you'll also see the food and water be consumed.
@@HedgehogsHollow thank you 🙂. I'll definitely look into this. We arrived this year from SA. Loving the UK and especially our new home in the north.
I am learning so much from your videos but have a couple of questions. This is my first hedgehog who eats all the food I leave out each night and drinks from a number of water bowls around the garden. My garden is very small but I have placed the house in a very quiet corner under the fig tree. I think it’s occupied as all the straw, cardboard and dried leaves disappear overnight.
Q1: What do I do about feeding when on holiday?
Q2: If I increase the height under the side gate how does one stop the cats getting in as I do not like cats?!
Thanks again for the brilliant videos.
Yes, feeding them while on holiday can be a difficult situation. But remember - what we provide them should in theory be a supplement to what is naturally available to them. Also, they roam extensively at night and won't be restricted to your own garden. So on that basis I think you will be OK to not leave food out while on holiday - surplus food will only get mouldy and attract other kinds of visitors that you may not want at all.
Leave out your normal amount, and if you're away know that your hedgehog visitor will find food elsewhere to make up for what you're not leaving out.
As far as cats are concerned, I'd suggest making the food available to the hedgehogs in a feeding station that the cats cannot get to. I suspect that cats will manage to get over fences regardless of the size of the opening, but if the food isn't accessible to them, then that makes it perhaps less attractive to them in the first place. So make the opening larger for your hedgehogs and then restrict the food.
We have Hedgehogs. We have been getting them for years. Behind our garage we have a den room that doesn’t have a door attached. My son tiedye in there. Last week he left some plastic sheeting in a corner that should of been moved. The other day I went in there( don’t normally) to my surprise a large Hedgehog was fast asleep within the plastic sheeting. So I have ordered a hedgehog home to put in there. I was quite upset because it could of suffocated in that plastic. This morning I went to check and it wasn’t there. We must move plastic sheeting straight away. Could I just ask. Is it ok for me to put leaves as bedding in the Hedgehog House in case it comes back to sleep in it?.... or should I use Straw or something else for its bedding?......
Hello Carolyne,
Putting a hedgehog house out for your visiting hedgehog is a great idea.
And yes, you absolutely can put some bedding into the house - though don't fill it, just cover the floor with leaves, hay or straw.
Make sure there is bedding available in your garden too - natural bedding in the form of fallen leaves will do, or supplement with straw or hay. Any visitor making use of the house will very quickly make themselves at home.
Thank you for your guided advice and getting back to me
I have two hedgehogs coming into the garden each night. I leave food and water and they certainly drink a lot. I have two houses one which is new. I have a question though, the other house was occupied all winter and the hog did not hibernate. It was coming out most nights even in the snow to eat and drink. Since it has warmed up he has not been seen. Would you open the house and check as I have a feeling that he may have died inside.
Hallo, I'm not Mike, but a little hedgehogstation in Germany. I would take a little look at the house. Perhaps the little fellow needs help.
HI Ken,
It's possible that your winter resident has simply moved on in the spring looking for a new, summer home. That's very common behaviour and a possible explanation for him disappearing.
How long though have you not seen the hedgehog? Is it possible it left and hasn't returned? or is it possible it may have actually been a pregnant female?
@@HedgehogsHollow I don't think he/she has moved on as I banked up some leaves in front of the door and they have not been disturbed. I had a quick peek inside and it is still there. I did not try to wake it up as I believe it can kill them if they are hibernating.
Do hedgehogs share a home?
It's not their natural preference to share, they generally are lone animals, but I have very often seen multiple hedgehogs share a single box overnight - in fact the most I have seen is 4 in a single box on one night. But that's not the norm - generally they choose to stay in their own house alone.
@@HedgehogsHollow thank you.