Hedgehog poo, possibly?

[vole-woman]

It was about three cm long, full of beetle cases, and gooey in the middle (I know, too much information perhaps). What do you think?

[vole-woman]

Oh, it was on my back lawn. We have had hogs passing through, but not for a couple of years.

[willowjay]

Looks like hog poo to me. We're ankle-deep in it here, and they are eating me out of house and home! - but I don't mind - they're great. Start putting out food and fresh water every evening and watch out at for them at dusk

[vole-woman]

I've got a saucer with a bit of meaty cat food out, plus my trail camera, and I'm crossing my fingers. We found quite a lot of this round the garden and I'm wondering whether it's several youngsters (what a treat that would be!!!).

[Keith D]

Originally Posted by vole-woman

It was about three cm long, full of beetle cases, and gooey in the middle (I know, too much information perhaps). What do you think?

Hi

Yes thats poo from a relatively young hedgehog
interesting the beetle cases comment
we provide food for them here from within a feeding station to
keep the local cats out
among other things we put a bowl of dried mealworms which they love
this produces black poo like that.
a normal [800 gram to a kilo] hedgehog will do poo about 3 or 4 times the diameter of your sample

if you dont already feed them a couple of shallowish bowls of water
around the garden will help them, water is vital to hedgehogs.
for food we use kitten biscuits,Iams purple packet is one of the more popular
ones.

cheers

K/

[Farplace]

Yup.... that certainly looks like hedgehog poo to me.

[vole-woman]

Well, I am made up. There's such a lot of these droppings round the garden I think it must be a couple of animals at least. I wish I'd seen them! (Got nothing on the camera, alas, and no takers on the cat food but I perhaps put it out too close to the house.)

Our garden's ideal for hogs as I have a hedgehog house installed, there are no walls or fences, we don't have cats or dogs or use chemicals, and we have a waterfall with a shallow basin that's perfect for animals to drink at. I don't know why we've had so few hogs over the years.

[CharlieCreek]

aye, looks like hog poo.

Beetles are at the top of the hogs desired food list so the inedible parts of the beetle such as the wing casing is about right.

Just like bats where there can be a sparkle to the droppings, hogs can be the same if they are getting lots of things like beetles.

If you feed the hogs their poo will change to be a bit looser in texture. One reason to leave out dry rather than wet food is that wet food can give them very loose bowl movements.

[vole-woman]

I'll get some cat biscuits in.

Just been to check and found the adult's poo:



plus two more lots of babies' droppings. I'm so thrilled. Hope they stay, though we've never had a resident hedgehog, only intinerants.

[dampflippers]

Oooh! well done!
Did you get any photos with the trail camera?

Even if you have a pond, it is a good idea to have a dish of water to avoid any mishaps especially with babies falling in ponds.
If you can put water in the front garden too that will be good for them too- very few people think to have water there.