Water bowl is an excellent idea - whether for hedgehogs or other visiting creatures and possibly birds too. We started our food with just a small amount - just in case it was being eaten by rodents - we don't want to encourage mice or rats into the garden. However after a few evenings we spotted our first hedgehog so tried to time feeding time to coincide with their visits. The problem with putting out cat or dog food is that it often smells "meaty" which rodents and neighbour cats can smell from afar.
Yeah there's lots of cats around so i'm going to have to think of a way to keep them away. I've recently put in a small wildlife pond in the back garden for birds etc but i'm not sure that hedgehogs will venture back there as there's no other gardens for them to go to.
Well done all, glad to hear the positive responses. GD, I hope you have little hog lets around this time in 2 months. Fingers crossed
Agree with Philippa Re: Hedgehog feeding station, perfect description. I use mine in the same way. Here's a tutorial on creating one Tom, I position mine against the shed with a hedgehog sized distance away: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O09nMf5AZTs
Thanks for that Mark! That looks a lot easier than building something out of wood, especially as i'm really busy with the rest of the garden. Should be able to hide it around some ferns too
Some more sad ones today. We had a little girl in, last year's baby at a guess, and her teeth had rotted to the point that massive infection had set in and her jaw bones had collapsed. Her mouth was sealed shut with dried blood and there was absolutely nothing we could do to save her.
Please realise that whilst you think you are helping by putting out interesting meals, piles of sultanas, raisins and suet pellets are not a balanced diet, they are full of sugar and fat and wild animals don't have a toothbrush, they can't clean their teeth.
If you could have seen the state of this poor animal you might think twice about good intentions.
Coming into Hedgehog Awareness Week, if we can get one thing into the minds of everyone in the country it would have to be:
Meaty dog or cat food Hedgehog Pellets - without the dried fruit and crushed mealworms (can cause calcium deficiency in high quantities) please Or Cat biscuits and PLENTY of fresh water. No milk ever.
That is a balanced diet, helps bones, body and keeps their teeth clean.
How very sad. I would still advocate dry hedgehog food - no smell, does not attract vermin or cats, and you know it is giving the hogs a well balanced diet. If it is somewhere dry and clean it can be left out for quite a few days; although perhaps a bit more expensive, there is absolutely no waste.
I saw that post too Mark, on my local hedgehog rescue's site as they were passing it on to as many people as possible.
I must admit I used to put 4 or 5 (no more) mealworms onto the dog food as a kind of "garnish" but no longer. I even pick up the dish of mealworms that I put out for the birds during the day, in case any are left in it & check around the area for any that have been scattered around.
We are getting a lot of hedgehogs coming in right now and some of them are in a bad way. One lady brought in this youngster saying he had been found collapsed on her lawn. Many of our finders tell us how they look after their hedgehogs and that gives us a clue to what could be wrong.
In this case she said she fed them daily on mealworms, peanuts and sunflower hearts, all the things we recommend you don't feed in any quantities for a number of reasons, calcium leeching being the worst issue but also the fact there is nothing crunchy to help clean their teeth.
Sure enough, there was blood was coming from this youngster's mouth. Infection had gone into his jaw and the bone was breaking down. If you don't believe what we tell you about food choices for these animals then please believe the pictures and if any of you are putting out sweet treats such as fairy cakes, fruit cake or, heaven help us, Wagon Wheels, please stop it immediately!
This little guy lost his life because people were trying to help in the wrong ways.
Thank you Mark56 for showing me this thread it's fab! My hoggy loves its hedgehog biscuits we have big hedges which have now been filled with logs to season for at least 2 years, so they will hopefully have a big food source with us soon! By that point we will no doubt be replacing those logs with other logs (we have a wood stove and get unseasoned wood for free) Next thing i will be doing is creating a hedgehog house, which will end up being at the back of my rockery once its been moved into the corner. I'm hoping that soon i will have some hogletts appearing
I use an underbed storage container, food at one end, and a whole at the other, its been a great success! Then if i put a jar lid of inky water at the entrance i can then see who has been visiting - so far only hogs, i'm surprised as we have mice in our woodshed and i sould have thought they would have been in and about it.
At the moment i have just ran out of the hedgehog biscuits so to make sure my hoggy didn't get hungry i put out gokat biscuits (that i had originally used)... well it either didn't come or wasn't impressed with the biscuits as they wern't touched lol, so al be shopping after work Later this year or next i will be starting to get my live mealworms ordered again ( used for my robins) but will be given to them only as an occasional treat, and that will only be 2 or 3
Posts
Water bowl is an excellent idea - whether for hedgehogs or other visiting creatures and possibly birds too. We started our food with just a small amount - just in case it was being eaten by rodents - we don't want to encourage mice or rats into the garden. However after a few evenings we spotted our first hedgehog so tried to time feeding time to coincide with their visits. The problem with putting out cat or dog food is that it often smells "meaty" which rodents and neighbour cats can smell from afar.
Yeah there's lots of cats around so i'm going to have to think of a way to keep them away. I've recently put in a small wildlife pond in the back garden for birds etc but i'm not sure that hedgehogs will venture back there as there's no other gardens for them to go to.
Well done all, glad to hear the positive responses. GD, I hope you have little hog lets around this time in 2 months. Fingers crossed
Agree with Philippa Re: Hedgehog feeding station, perfect description. I use mine in the same way. Here's a tutorial on creating one Tom, I position mine against the shed with a hedgehog sized distance away: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O09nMf5AZTs
Thanks for that Mark! That looks a lot easier than building something out of wood, especially as i'm really busy with the rest of the garden. Should be able to hide it around some ferns too
Sounds perfect, let us know how you get on
Interesting post from my local rescue re: feeding
Some more sad ones today. We had a little girl in, last year's baby at a guess, and her teeth had rotted to the point that massive infection had set in and her jaw bones had collapsed. Her mouth was sealed shut with dried blood and there was absolutely nothing we could do to save her.
Please realise that whilst you think you are helping by putting out interesting meals, piles of sultanas, raisins and suet pellets are not a balanced diet, they are full of sugar and fat and wild animals don't have a toothbrush, they can't clean their teeth.
If you could have seen the state of this poor animal you might think twice about good intentions.
Coming into Hedgehog Awareness Week, if we can get one thing into the minds of everyone in the country it would have to be:
Meaty dog or cat food
Hedgehog Pellets - without the dried fruit and crushed mealworms (can cause calcium deficiency in high quantities) please
Or
Cat biscuits
and PLENTY of fresh water. No milk ever.
That is a balanced diet, helps bones, body and keeps their teeth clean.
How very sad. I would still advocate dry hedgehog food - no smell, does not attract vermin or cats, and you know it is giving the hogs a well balanced diet. If it is somewhere dry and clean it can be left out for quite a few days; although perhaps a bit more expensive, there is absolutely no waste.
I saw that post too Mark, on my local hedgehog rescue's site as they were passing it on to as many people as possible.
I must admit I used to put 4 or 5 (no more) mealworms onto the dog food as a kind of "garnish" but no longer. I even pick up the dish of mealworms that I put out for the birds during the day, in case any are left in it & check around the area for any that have been scattered around.
Again, another sad story re: feeding
We are getting a lot of hedgehogs coming in right now and some of them are in a bad way. One lady brought in this youngster saying he had been found collapsed on her lawn. Many of our finders tell us how they look after their hedgehogs and that gives us a clue to what could be wrong.
In this case she said she fed them daily on mealworms, peanuts and sunflower hearts, all the things we recommend you don't feed in any quantities for a number of reasons, calcium leeching being the worst issue but also the fact there is nothing crunchy to help clean their teeth.
Sure enough, there was blood was coming from this youngster's mouth. Infection had gone into his jaw and the bone was breaking down. If you don't believe what we tell you about food choices for these animals then please believe the pictures and if any of you are putting out sweet treats such as fairy cakes, fruit cake or, heaven help us, Wagon Wheels, please stop it immediately!
This little guy lost his life because people were trying to help in the wrong ways.
https://www.facebook.com/%2FHedgehog.Bottom%2Fposts%2F1393310734024988%3A0
Thank you Mark56 for showing me this thread it's fab! My hoggy loves its hedgehog biscuits
we have big hedges which have now been filled with logs to season for at least 2 years, so they will hopefully have a big food source with us soon! By that point we will no doubt be replacing those logs with other logs (we have a wood stove and get unseasoned wood for free) Next thing i will be doing is creating a hedgehog house, which will end up being at the back of my rockery once its been moved into the corner. I'm hoping that soon i will have some hogletts appearing 
I use an underbed storage container, food at one end, and a whole at the other, its been a great success! Then if i put a jar lid of inky water at the entrance i can then see who has been visiting - so far only hogs, i'm surprised as we have mice in our woodshed and i sould have thought they would have been in and about it.
At the moment i have just ran out of the hedgehog biscuits so to make sure my hoggy didn't get hungry i put out gokat biscuits (that i had originally used)... well it either didn't come or wasn't impressed with the biscuits as they wern't touched lol, so al be shopping after work
Later this year or next i will be starting to get my live mealworms ordered again ( used for my robins) but will be given to them only as an occasional treat, and that will only be 2 or 3 