Hedgehog habits

[tigertom]

Hi all just wondering how sociable are hedgehogs got home later than I wanted this evening and was after dark. And as I had not put any food out for the hedgehogs that vist most night this was 1st thing I did as it was dark took dim light to see what I was doing and to my surprise alredy in my garden was not one but three hogs one near to one feeding bowl and other two very near to my other feeding bowl, these two were very close to each other. Now I am not sure if these are the young ones I had comeing in a month or so back if it is they have grown a bit. Can you often find this many hogs so close to each other all three were within 4 ft of each other and size wise all about the same dont think they were fully grown but not to far off.
Thanks
MIKE

[Hedgehoggy]

Hi Mike, although hogs aren’t sociable creatures (i.e. don’t hang around in groups), you’ll often find them feeding alongside each other. Most nights I see at least 2 hogs feeding side by side at one of my 3 feeding areas. Sometimes, there are territorial fights over food, which is why I have more than one feeding area for them. Quite often, if their natural food isn’t in abundance, no sooner have I put the food out they’re there munching away before I’ve even gone back indoors! Also, as you’ve noted, they’ll also openly hang around their regular feeding areas in anticipation of the goodies that are to come.

At this time of year, they’ll be actively trying to gain as much as weight as poss for their impending hibernations - with the exceptions of some females who’ll be giving birth to their second litters in the autumn (or unfortunately for some of them, even in the winter).

Now seems a good time to stress the importance to everybody who feeds their visiting hogs to leave a little dried food and water out all throughout the winter for any struggling visiting hogs – not just for the late babies and their mums, but also for the many hogs who frequently rouse from hibernation during the winter and venture out for a top-up of food and water before resuming hibernation, particularly those which are dangerously underweight pre-hibernation.

Dried food such as kitten/cat biscuits is recommended because it doesn’t freeze or putrefy like tinned cat food does, but if local cats will be a problem with leaving cat food out, chopped unsalted peanuts, sunflower hearts, dried mealworms, sultanas, in fact most foodstuffs you would feed to the birds (but not bread), would all be just as gratefully received to a very hungry hog.

[tigertom]

I have only two hog feeding bowls but am goung to put another out.
I put a good miix of food meal worms chopped pea nuts iams chicken cat food dry friut and sunflower hearts cats not a problem my gringer tom sees to that and he hates iams cat food and never bothers hogs dont think they even notice him. dont know for sure how many different hogs I get in garden but sure getting though some food just been out to top up bowls and it will be gone by time I get up. I also leave plenty of water out.
MIKE

[Hedgehoggy]

Hi Mike, sounds like you have quite a few visiting hogs all trying to fatten up for winter! Word certainly gets around when there's a five-star drive-thru diner in your garden! The food you're putting out is perfect. The water you're putting out is just as important for them ~ I just wished my ginger tom wasn't interested in my hogs' Iams bics!

[CharlieCreek]

The hedgehog sociability aspect is an interesting one. They are solitary creatures but as Hedgehoggy says come together at feeding stations.

The strange thing I have noticed and keep an eye on is their behaviour when moved from the rescue area into either the secure garden or pre-release pen.

The pre-release pen has three hog homes in a block and a couple of feeding stations. The secure garden has five hog homes in three different areas and a number of feeding station.

More often than not when there are a number of hogs acclimatising to being outdoors again before being release they all decide to sleep in the same hog home.

The next night they may have moved to another hog home, but again all of them. So it isn't that one hog home is especially appealing.

The last week or so we have had Dan our resident blind hog, Harriet a back leg injury adult waiting for a secure garden to go to, Jake a resident back leg injury and three juveniles now at 500 grams putting that last bit of weight on all in the secure garden.

All of them squish themselves into one hog home to sleep and they don't even sleep in different corners, they all squish up in the same corner. They sometimes move to a different hog home (apart from Dan who always uses the same one), but Harriet, Jake and the 3 juveniles will all sleep together.

The same has been happening with the three juveniles in the pre-release pen.

It is interesting behaviour to monitor.

[Hedgehoggy]

The hogs in care do that here too if they’re sharing accommodation/pens, but I always thought that once released, they revert to type and go their separate ways. But, saying that, about 5 winters ago, after a particularly prolonged heavy downpour of rain I went out to check if one of my newly home-made hog houses had leaked, and was surprised to find TWO hibernating hogs in there! (The house was fortunately still dry and cosy inside ).

So, to recap, in general they are solitary creatures, but there are always exceptions to any rules!

[operanut1972]

Do you think that it's possible for social factors to be influenced during their stay at the rescue centre's? When you have no choice but to be holed up with 3/4 others do they then become so used to it, they get 'conditioned' into a need for company? I know I'm projecting human behaviours onto them, but in this case, surely it's not too big a stretch?

[Hedgehoggy]

That’s a fair enough question, operanut, and one which I don’t know the answer to with any certainty. As you can appreciate, it’s impossible to keep a track on releasees unless they’re radio tagged.

From my own experiences and observations, I like to believe they revert to type upon release. As a recent example, after hand-rearing two sibling hoglets together and getting them up to good weights, I put them together in one of my outside pens in my garden to acclimatise them to the environment prior to their full release (this is known as soft-releasing). When I was satisfied with their progress, I opened up the pen for them to go on their merry way. One hog left on the first night, never to return, the second hog decided to stick around, and is still living there now two weeks later and has been collecting dried leaves from around my garden and bringing them back to line the nestbox inside the pen – I think she’s decided to stay there for the winter. That renders me one pen less for any future releasees!

I’m also sure I read somewhere that in the wild, some siblings will stay together for longer than is usual, but all this changes come the spring when they’ll go their separate ways following the ‘call of the wild’!

I only house (healthy) hoglets together, not adults. Poorly/injured hogs are housed separately too. Hoglets, understandably, tend to thrive better if they’re being housed with other hoglets whilst in care. So, in effect they’re only kept together ‘artifically’ for a few weeks longer than they would otherwise be in the wild. And as Charlie has pointed out, even when they have a choice of several nestboxes, you’re guaranteed to find them all huddled up in the one nestbox, while the other nestboxes remain unoccupied.

Incidentally, I’ve no idea if the two hogs I found hibernating together in one of my hog houses five years ago were ones I’d previously released into my garden. As far as I can recall, I hadn’t released any hogs into my garden that year, they were all returned to their finder’s gardens (which I remember wondering about at the time). A cursory peek of the hibernating hogs also didn’t reveal any ‘painted spines’ (I mark them whilst in care so’s not to get them mixed up), so it is possible these were late summer babes who had remained together, coming into my garden to feed and subsequently finding one of my hog houses to sleep in for the winter.

As a side note, and this is purely from my own observations again, I believe hedgehogs are one of the few animals which don’t easily imprint on humans. Once they reach around 400g the majority revert to type and instead of coming out of their nestboxes for a nosey when they hear me approaching, they bolt like lightning back into them. And where previously they were co-operative at being picked up to be weighed, they later curl up into a defensive ball, huffing and puffing. Of course, there are always some which don’t display the ‘revert to type’ behaviour whilst still in care, so some years ago I asked a neighbour to come in and approach a particularly ‘friendly’ hog which I was wanting to release but was worried about his ‘tameness’. Hog instantly ‘froze’ on the spot when my neighbour approached, and when she picked him up he curled into a ball for the first time!

A hedgehog’s natural instincts are strongly inbuilt, no doubts about that whatsoever. But then they do have the added advantage of having been around for a cool 15 millions years

[operanut1972]

They are remarkable little things. Thanks for your thoughts, it even answered a great number of my questions. I would like to think we made as little impact onto our cohabitants on this world. But we both no better than that, don't we