'arry 2022

[Sean Regan]

On Friday, I watched the video of him dragging in the hay I left on his patio the night before and I realised why he was starting so early getting ready for hibernation. Even if I provided him with all the hay he needed, it'd take him forever his progress was so slow.

So "he played Dorothy again" as I changed his house over on Saturday morning.

I notice that in his summer house there wasn't enough hay in it to see him through the winter.
But his housekeeping was better, there was no mud on the floor of the house under the hay. It was quite clean.
While the exchange was going on, he just curled up in a ball, I checked for ticks but I could see none. I did put some of his old hay in with his new hay so he would recognise the smell. There's enough to arrange his bed and block off the entrance when he needs to.
I left him some extra hay on his patio but I'm not sure if he used any when I took this photo this morning.

This house has thick polystyrene under the floor and roofing felt all around for better insulation.

You could say it would have been a "traumatic experience," but he still came for his dinner at the usual time last night and raided the bird feeder. I guess he realises he won't come to any harm.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

I would say the most cosseted hedgehog around, but looking through our village website I realise you are far from being alone in your attentions, however, he does do pretty well. I particularly like the slab of polystyrene, warm and waterproof, when you have slept on the ground you realise it is more important what goes under you than what goes on top.

 

[Sean Regan]

'arry is bulking himself up, ready for winter. He's always had dry and semi-moist hedgehog pellets plus suet pellets available as well as his sachet of catfood each night, but he rarely ate many. But now he's tucking into them and it shows.

We're changing his name to "Porky."

Out in the rain the other night.

Yesterday, a golfing pal mentioned that when he went to his car the other night, a huge hedgehog he notice appear from under it. He said several had been run over in his road this year. At least 'arry is in a safe environment.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

Hedgehogs are classed as a species liable to extinction in Britain, so several killed on one road seems unusual. On the other hand I read on facebook about several people who feed hedgehogs in our village. It makes me wonder how good the counting methods for a mainly nocturnal animal are? I remember a few years ago there was a report of how extremely rare barn owls were, but I saw one regularly quartering the fields by the river in Bodiam, and spotted two or three elsewhere in my headlights, and once near Horsemonden picking up a dead blackbird from the roadside mid-morning. They were widely enough distributed that they couldn't have been the same bird. They are off the endangered list now, but at the time the entire British population was reckoned to be in three figures, that I saw that many seemed incredible.
Animal and bird populations fluctuate greatly. I remember reading about a study of robins in open parkland with quite a large population, then they caught a virus that reduced them to two or three pairs. Within two years they were back to previous population levels. When the population is low there is not the competition and a much higher percentage of young survive. With an adult lifespan of about five years and an average litter size of four to five that is about twenty offspring for each female, not counting that they sometimes have up to seven hoglets and sometimes two litters a year. If one in ten survive they are maintaining their population level.. If there is little competition, the females have large litters twice yearly and most survive the population will explode.
At one time dead hedgehogs by the roadside were common, there was even a cartoon 'Robohog', he punctured tyres with his steel spines Nowadays I much more commonly see dead badgers, this tells me animal behaviour changes, badgers used to be completely shy of humans, leaving a wood if people walked through it, now they are raiding urban dustbins. Have hedgehogs learned about the dangers of roads and started avoiding them more?
Sometimes I really doubt the expertise of 'experts'.

 

[Sean Regan]

Checking on his feeder this morning, I was surprised to find that all his dry and semi-moist hedgehog pellets and the suet ones had gone.
This aroused my suspicions, so I checked the camera.

Caught in the act! The pesky grey cat had managed to squeeze in while the black and white one stood and watched! (he'd be too big)


It will have been the first time it had got in as the camera hadn't picked him up doing it on any other night.

Do I hate cats!


'arry had been in earlier so at least he got his chicken slices.

Problem. what to do.

These plastic boxes are a pain, they don't cut easily and tend to split. I needed to reduce the aperture.
I did it by finding the lid of an old kibbled nut container and managed to cut a smaller hole in it. I'd been a bit generous with the original hole, but this one I made only 4" in diameter. I'm working on the premise if 'arry is happy enough to squeeze under the top of the bird feeder, he'll get through this. I covered it in black tape so it looked much like the old entrance and screwed it on.

The big brick will go back on the top when I put the food in tonight.


I'll be checking the camera again as usual tomorrow.

I've left some more hay on his patio. He'd taken in the handful I left the day before yesterday.

 

[Susan BBPM]

I'd like to make a hedgehog house but not sure our garden is suitable. We do get hedgehogs that visit to feed but we have 4 dogs so I doubt they'd be happy living here?

We have a fenced off area to our garden (the veg garden) that the dogs don't get into, but they do run around the outside of it - would that put off the hedgehogs?

The only other place is by the stream - there's a small stream runs at the bottom of our garden with an overgrown bank. It's fenced off to keep the dogs in so the strip of land is a few feet wide. The trouble here is the river tends to flood once a year. That said, moles seem to happily burrow around down there.

Is it worth the effort of trying?

 

[Sean Regan]

Hedgehogs have an excellent defence, they can curl up in a ball and their spikes are very sharp. I only pick ours up when necessary wearing gloves. That's only a couple of times a year.

You could buy a hedgehog house like mine for around £30.
Ideally, they need to be under some sort of shelter, up against a side fence if possible.
They need to be slightly off the ground. Mine has four small rubber door stops as feet and it sits on a small paving slab.

If you put some hay in it, if hedgehogs visit your garden it will soon be occupied.
As ours is contained in our garden, for reasons I've explained before, we have to feed it as it won't find enough natural food.
You don't to feed wild hedgehogs as the can can travel a long way.

You are unlikely to see them unless they are out and about just before dark. So your dogs should not bother them.

They poo a lot, so I've the daily job of cleaning the patio and giving it a wash down every few days.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

Sean's garden is pretty protected by fences, but my friend has a hedgehog house which has a longish tunnel to access it as well as the double compartment so that it is protected from predators, I think badgers and foxes, but they are in an urban area so I think there are also a lot of cats. Worth finding out about.

 

[Susan BBPM]

Hedgehogs have an excellent defence, they can curl up in a ball and their spikes are very sharp. I only pick ours up when necessary wearing gloves. That's only a couple of times a year.

You could buy a hedgehog house like mine for around £30.
Ideally, they need to be under some sort of shelter, up against a side fence if possible.
They need to be slightly off the ground. Mine has four small rubber door stops as feet and it sits on a small paving slab.

If you put some hay in it, if hedgehogs visit your garden it will soon be occupied.
As ours is contained in our garden, for reasons I've explained before, we have to feed it as it won't find enough natural food.
You don't to feed wild hedgehogs as the can can travel a long way.

You are unlikely to see them unless they are out and about just before dark. So your dogs should not bother them.

They poo a lot, so I've the daily job of cleaning the patio and giving it a wash down every few days.

The reason that I know we do have hedgehog visitors is because my Beagles occasionally find them in the garden and make sure the whole village knows about it!! The hedgehogs curl up in a ball and my Beagles just surround it, not going too close, woofing like there's no tomorrow!! I can't imagine them being brave enough to hurt anything.

A couple of houses down my neighbour has a Parsons Jack Russell - now that little dog is a killer! They have two daughters and the dad used to have a pretty much full time job cleaning up the blood and evidence. He DID catch hedgehogs - the spikes would hurt his mouth, which made him mad and he'd bite harder. Often (I'm told - I never saw it) he'd manage to bring a hedgehog into the house and the kitchen would be splattered with blood.

I might give it a go. Hubby is handy so he'd build one.

 

[Sean Regan]

The reason that I know we do have hedgehog visitors is because my Beagles occasionally find them in the garden and make sure the whole village knows about it!! The hedgehogs curl up in a ball and my Beagles just surround it, not going too close, woofing like there's no tomorrow!! I can't imagine them being brave enough to hurt anything.

A couple of houses down my neighbour has a Parsons Jack Russell - now that little dog is a killer! They have two daughters and the dad used to have a pretty much full time job cleaning up the blood and evidence. He DID catch hedgehogs - the spikes would hurt his mouth, which made him mad and he'd bite harder. Often (I'm told - I never saw it) he'd manage to bring a hedgehog into the house and the kitchen would be splattered with blood.

I might give it a go. Hubby is handy so he'd build one.

I thought of making my own. But I didn't have any spare timber at the time. It would have cost me the price of buying one on-line, wood is so expensive these days.

 

[Sean Regan]

I hadn't got any bricks, just the one I put on top of the feeder to stop it getting knocked over, so I used that with a bit of 3" x 2" to make it higher, as a barrier as Logan suggested. I found a spare granite sett to use as a weight on the top.

The camera picked him up (and the cats) which didn't attempt to get in. 'arry ate his dinner and some of the pellets.

He has now taken in the two handfulls of hay I've left on his patio over three days.

So I've left him some more.

He must be "packing it in," maybe he knows it might be a hard winter. We're only likely to see him now for another couple of weeks, if he hibernates around the same time as he did last year.

 

[Sean Regan]

I've sorted out the back end of the wire enclosure, so now the back end is a removeable "gate."
I needed a couple of thos green metal 1mtr plant stakes from Wilko. Whilst I was fixing it I heard him moving his furniture about a bit but it didn't take him long.

I took the opportunity of pruning off a few dead azalea branches and gave his "garden" a bit of a weed and removed a lot of small dead azalea leaves. I've left him some more hay.

I expect we'll only be seeing him for two or three more weeks, but I'll keep leaving his food out for a couple of days after he stops coming out. The camera will tell me if he does. I'll leave some water in a dish near his house.

 

[DeborahJane]

What a lovely bedtime story Sean. "The Adventures of 'arry" by Sean Regan. It's very early in the morning here, I woke as usual and I try to find something to do very quietly so I don't disturb the household. This read has been perfect. I look forward to the next chapter.

 

[Sean Regan]

I've still got a problem with one cat, he's backwards and forwards to the patio all night.
I don't think it can get into the feeder now I've put the bricks there. But having got in once before the bricks were there, it's thick enough to think it might still be able to get in. But while it's there it could put 'arry off.

From time on the two photos below, he's back and forth for six hours

So I've tried to make it even more difficult for it to even look in.

I found a bit of hardboard in the shed, which I cut to size and wrapped in duct tape, because the rain would ruin it. I've screwed it to the block of wood and that in turn to the top brick so it can't be shifted. It forms a bit of a tunnel. Shouldn't bother 'arry as it's not that different to the entrance to his house.

 

[Sean Regan]

We're thinking of changing 'arry's name to "Porky."

He's fattening himself up ready for hibernation.

As well as the cats we had another visitor last night.

This, believe it or not will have been born in early March.. It just had a wander around, had the sense to realise it couldn't get into the feeder.
I don't think it'll bother 'arry.

Still it was just the one.

Five years ago these six were born under our summerhouse at the bottom of the garden. They didn't do much damage.