Giant hedgehog living in my garden

[SinkGirl]

A few times I’ve heard rustling in the hops plant by my kitchen and now I’ve seen it - a whopping great hedgehog.

I’m worried for the little guy - there’s so many cats in this area, will he get attacked? How’s he getting enough to eat?

Can’t put cat food out, the cats will eat it. What should I do? He’s so cute.

Oh god. Not a happy update from me.

Haven’t seen Hedgley (yes, I named him) for a few nights. Today found a very large decomposing dead rat in the garden. Now terrified that there’s a family of rats under the decking, where I’m sure Hedgley hangs out. Now back to being terrified of leaves rustling. Don’t know if it’s one rat or many and obviously can’t put down rat poison and risk hurting the hedgehogs.

If I got a hedgehog house, could rats get into it?

thank you!

I am going to miss mine so much when he hibernates 😟. I hope he remembers me and comes back next year.

I was just outside, stepped outside the back door and an animal came from behind me and ran to the hedge... it was dark so all I could make out was the shape...

Hedgley or rat?! Oh god.

I'm sure it was Hedgley @SinkGirl 🙏

My guy is 'Henry' - how imaginative are we with our 'H' names... 😮😂

Hedgehogs can move fast, SinkGirl, so it could easily have been Hedgley. But yes, rats could get into hog house easily.

Mr Squiggles and Morgan are both visiting every night, now.

Me again, I buy BAGS of these a week,hogs adore them,the Tesco own Kitten chicken +rice biscuits....only £1.10 ,along with meaty cat wet food,think this is why I'm so lucky to get so many visitors and baba's😊

Balls. No hedgehog house for us then

We have one in our garden too. I hear him./her going through the overgrown bushes and one evening I was liking up the washing machine (in outhouse) and there was the hedgehog standing on the step watching me. I said hello to him / her, had a little chat and then went and got dry cat food soaking in water and saucer of water to drink as well.

If you have a rat problem and if you are worried then pest control will sort but you need to make sure they know you have a hedgehog to ensure anything they do is safe for it. It may mean they can’t do much.

Given we are supposed to be having a return of best from the east but even worse this winter - put a hedge house out and keep an eye on whether it is attracting rats. Keep water out and unfrozen (for birds too think they will struggle this winter). Keep garden ‘messy’ in areas so there are leaves/twigs/piles for shelter (and providing bird nesting materials for their shelter).
Really jealous of your hog op (not of the rats). Will never forget first time I saw one - the racket they make rustling about !

It’s hard to say at this point whether there are more rats or whether the cats killed one and brought it up to the house... this is why I hate the decking as I know it’s a rat magnet but would cost at least £10k to get our garden sorted... sigh. Hoping to do it next year.

Apparently hogs can’t get into rat bait boxes but hoglets can so I may have to wait it out until it’s not the season for them and monitor the rat issue.

I do hope it was Hedgley last night, not least because whoever it was had come right up to the house so I may be able to get a good picture. I’ll try to have a look out of the window tonight around that time with the lights off inside.

I worry about attracting birds to the garden because our cats will have them - came out to a dead one a few weeks ago. Years ago they brought a bird into the house, was flying around for a while before we got it out! I love our cats but I hate the hunting. I’m glad Hedgley isn’t prey for them - I’ve seen them creeping up on him / her, but seem too afraid to get near.

Our cat when he was younger was always outside and took up residence in our shed which he shared happily with a hedgehog. I am not kidding, they got on fine.

sink definitely cancel all bird related comments in mine then for sure !

I have hedgehog envy.

Their equivalent, the echidna, is widespread, i.e. all over Australia, though not common, i.e. not in suburbs. I say equivalent, but echidnas are not sociable in the manner of hedgehogs.

I put out really cheap cat food (dry biscuits) and most of the spoilt neighbourhood cats won't touch them! The hedgehog loved them and you could hear him snuffling around in the dish in the evenings.

Oh god my mum has a family of them, she's built them a house, feeds them, named them and brings them in and weighs them every few weeks 😂

She worries if she hasn't seen one of them and goes out looking at the road.....

I got her a family tree gift..... She was overjoyed I had put underneath the dogs, Walter, Hettie and babies

The only issue I have is that because of this..... They don't hibernate!

Dodger2 might try some of the Tesco stuff as it’s half the price of the hedgehog food, but don’t want to upset the status quo!

Grr - cat has found the place where I feed the hedgehogs and ate all the food last night ( caught on camera!) I wouldn’t mind so much but she has the same food inside, which she often leaves! May have to make a feeder. I got some video of one scurrying around looking disappointed later.

I'm in love...

What a cutiepie @HoggingTheHedge ❤️

We have one in our garden at the moment. He lives in the over grown border, and you can hear him snuffling about. Cat seems v interested in him. We have called him stanley.

We also have bats that swoop around the garden 😀

How do you get such clear pictures?

My [inner London] Brownies are desperate to make hedgehog houses. I’ve lived in this bit of the city my whole life (bar time away at Uni & working away for a few months on year out) & seen a hedgehog once. Well, was in fact a family of hedgehogs upping sticks & moving during the day - I was about 7 & my parents thought I was telling them about imaginary/fictional hedgehogs as they’d never known there be any nearby; they were suitably apologetic when they saw the hedgepig procession vanishing behind the shed...

On reflection, should possibly not have put that Unit Meeting Activity card out with rest Brownies were picking from. I suspect they fondly imagine that presence of a hedgehog house will somehow summon hedgehogs to location in which it is placed. And I’m sure I’d have parents just falling over themselves to give garden space to the girls’ efforts should we make the things... That said, given I’ve very definitely heard a tawny owl several nights recently (two of them in fact, mostly it’s been a bloke hoohoo-ing away, but I’ve also heard the owl he’s trying to impress shrieking her tu-whit back) so maybe this will be the year for Unexpected Wildlife.

This one came to find out what we were up to when camping at the weekend.