There's a hedgehog building a nest in my garden!

[AdamLambsbreath]

DH noticed it this morning. It has decided to build its nest . . . inside the tarp-covered pile of topsoil which I was using to fill my raised beds. Luckily I filled the last one that I built yesterday evening. I nearly waited until today, but am so glad I didn't!

It has been trundling back and forth with dried leaves all morning. I can't wait for it and its little hoglets to get out and start devouring some bastard slugs. I flung 50+ of the slimy horrors into the wood across the road the day before yesterday.

I only hope the little hoglets survive. Last year we were absolutely delighted to find five super-cute babies living under our allotment shed . . . followed by the sadness of finding a series of little bodies over the next few weeks

Does anyone know how long it takes them to raise a litter to the point that they leave the nest? Just wondering when I can plan to get the next bed in

Thanks

Ooops - Thanks for posting this.
We have an occasional visitor, but I'm very envious of your little family of hedgehogs.
Fingers crossed for some hoglet photos.

Hog update:

I'd been getting a bit worried about her because it's been so dry here and I haven't seen her for a couple of days . . . . but she was out and about last night.

We had a brief, heavy rainfall here in the evening, the first in a week, which brought all the slugs and snails out. She crunched through three snails in the first five minutes! The sound of a hedgehog enthusiastically eating a snail is most amusing.

There's no sign of hoglets yet. I've tried listening by the tarp after she's gone out, to see if anything else is moving in there, but . . nothing.

In other 'Adams' Garden Wildlife News', the foxes have taken to doing hideous Midsomer Murders shrieking at 4am. I take it they're mating, so maybe we'll have cubs in the garden as well. That's OK as long as they don't eat the hog!

Only the occasional hedgehog here that passes through, I love them....thanks so much for this thread, going off to work with a smile on my face after reading this

I'm so jealous. Ours doesn't seem to have come back this year. Hedgehog street collect data on them as they are a declining spieces - you might want to go online & make your hedgehog official

How lovely! You've reminded me we get one that passes though most nights at around 11 pm, but I've not seen it for a while.

I rescued a baby hedgehog a few years ago. It's parent had been run over by the car behind me. I had avoided them, but went back to check if the other car had. I called him/her Spike, and kept him in the greenhouse for the winter. I went to a fishing shop to buy worms as it would have taken too long to dig for some. The man asked me what I wanted to catch with them and thought I was mad when I said they were to feed a hedgehog. We fed him on cat food and crushed peanuts which he loved.

He made a big nest out of vine leaves and slept through to spring. I fed him up a bit before letting him go. A hedgehog did hibernate in the greenhouse again the following year, so I assume it was the same one. DH got a shock when he lifted a box up. He built him a hedgehog house from a plan on a hedgehog website. Unfortunately, he didn't want it. He did take all the lovely straw out of it though, and put it all into a black bin liner and slept there!

What a lovely story, inatizztoo.

Of course your hog didn't sleep in your perfect purpose-built hedgehog house Why do that when he/she could alarm you by camping out under a black bin bag?

Similarly, there is a perfectly good thick hedge within 1m of where our hog is nesting, which has been rejected in favour of my tarp-covered, easily overheated topsoil pile.

goshhh, I love the idea of making her 'official'! I'll have a look at the website.

Really love that this thread is making people happy. Such a nice feeling

Hog is now official

Yeah!

ours has just been back, am sat in dh's studio doing some admin for him and it trotted across the garden

You should be careful he doesn't get in your bath nipers

he's great!

he'd be welcome to have a bath if he wanted! i keep calling it a he but no idea how you tell if its male or female. am keeping an eye out for baby ones, am wondering since its out so much during the day if its nesting, although it doesn't look pregnant.

am thinking of emailing our nearest hedgehog rescue place, there's some over in leicester, with a pic of our hedgehog just to ask if we should do anything to make sure its ok. it looks ok, no injuries as far as i can see, its can move quickly when it wants to, climbs too, but am just worried about it being out in the day so much.

We have a baby hedgehog!!!! Just seen it out with a parent one, it's not tiny but is about half adult size, got a photo, not a brill one as didn't want to scare it as it was trying to find its way back to mum.

Squeeeeeee!

We're doing some landscaping so there's a pile of sleepers in the way but it managed to find its way back after being unable to climb over the wood, was funny watching it try! It went round the back of the flower bed, then under the deck, mum was waiting for it when it came out the other side and they both scuttled off. Will keep an eye out today if they come out again.

Oh, that's great nipers!

I'm counting the days since I saw mine building its nest, hoping to see some baby hogs here shortly . . .

It's official . . . there is now more than one hog!

I went out last night to see if the main hog was out and about. There was a lot of rustling and moving about going on under the tarpaulin, so I assumed she was getting ready to emerge . . . at which point she tootled across the path behind me and walked down the drive!

So, there is certainly more than one . . . I think maybe 2 or 3, from the amount of movement.

Excited to see when they'll emerge!

Yay :) How exciting!

That's so funny!

I am always astonished at how noisy and obvious they are, even when hiding. :)

Yes yes, they are rubbish hiders. They are hilarious. Yesterday I could hear them from the kitchen, inside the house!

They like to bite at the underside of the tarp and drag it into new shapes. From the outside all you can see is the surface billowing about and abruptly tucking in, accompanied by scratching and chewing sounds

She emerged again last night, but without 'subsidiary hogs' (as DH has named them).

We are going on holiday from Saturday for a week . . . it would just be sod's law if they came out while we were away

Just so long as you don't open your suitcase to find someone couldn't bear to be away from them for a week! I'm glad my DCs are past that age! :)

I'm proud to announce that Adam's garden is home to at least one baby hog!

It came out last night. It's a little bigger than the size of my fist and has quite pale bristles. It seems plump and healthy, though it was a bit fuddled by walking into a patch of light cast from the kitchen window, and bumped into a few things before we went in and turned the light off

I caught DH outside looking for hogs at 10:30, when I'd been getting ready for bed. He usually ribs me a bit at my habit of following them around, so it was pretty funny to find out he's just as hooked!

I stayed outside to see what they were doing while he went to brush his teeth. When the little one came out I dashed in and called him, resulting in two of us crouching in the dark next to a tarp in our bare feet, him in his pants and with a toothbrush sticking out the corner of his mouth

I can't tell if there are other little hogs in there, time will tell. I'll definitely be out tonight . . .

The garden is such a different place at night, it's weird. There's this whole world out there that you never see. When we looked up from the tarp there was a fox standing at the end of the drive, watching us and barking. All the undergrowth was rustling, full of secret nighttime creatures!

YeGods, we don't have DC (we're TTC). So the only person who might pack a hog is DH.

I shall keep an eye on him.