European Hedgehog
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Post  Bill Parkinson Mon Sep 14, 2009 4:29 am

I'm a retired businessman living near Bolton, Lancs in the North West of England. I have a large garden and I've been putting food out (small biscuits specially formulated for hedgehogs) for about two years. I have an infra red CCTV camera mounted so that it covers the feeding station so I can watch and record activity. I have about six adults and two juveniles visiting every night. I have a few questions/comments prompted by recent happenings:-
a) A juvenile (about the size of my fist) has been coming on to my patio during the day. It looks healthy and is taking food but I'm concerned that something may be wrong as it shouldn't be around during the afternoon.
b) I get regular visits from a young fox who has become rather partial to hedgehog food. It won't go to the dish though if a hedgehog is already there!
c) It's seems to be generally accepted that hedgehogs eat slugs. The other night as I watched the monitor screen a slug crawled into the feeding dish whilst a hedgehog was feeding and the hog totally ignored it and they shared the food for ten minutes before going their separate ways!
d) I'd like to be able to identify individual hedgehogs so that I can get an accurate count. I've thought of painting different patterns of white spots on the tips of their spines which would show up on the CCTV camera. Would this be acceptable or is there any other way?
e) Is it possible to easily sex adult hedgehogs?

Sorry if this is a bit long-winded but I've only just discovered this site and I've been saving up the questions.

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Post  Bethany Mon Sep 14, 2009 7:19 am

Welcome to the forum Bill!

Ok, so here are the answers as best I can:

A.) Any Hedgehogs out in the day must be picked up and taken in, as they will be sick or injured. A healthy Hedgehog will only come out at night. And if it's the size of your fist, I think it must be looking for food in the day because it's so desperate and hungry... So you must pick him up and either look after him yourself or call your local Hedgehog rescue.

B.) Some Foxes have been known to attack and even kill Hedgehogs... Even adults that are curled up into a ball. Sadly, there is not too much you can do to stop Foxes from doing this, but it's worth looking in to.

C.) Slugs and snails can give Hedgehog Lungworm, which is a nasty infection. The Hedgehog will get very ill and will develope a nasty cough that must be treated. That's why it's not recommended that slugs and snails are fed to Hedgehogs...

D.) Yes, you can mark the Hedgehogs by putting a coloured nail varnish on their spines... or something similar like Tip X.

E.) You can sex adult Hedgehogs, but first you need to be able to un-role them! Which is a task. There can be some confusion over male and females though...

Thanks for joining the forum, I hope you like it Smile

Bethany.
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Post  Hoggy Mon Sep 14, 2009 11:21 am

Hello Bill. Welcome to the forum, I think Beth has just about answered your questions Smile
Hope you like the forum
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Post  Trish Mon Sep 14, 2009 1:33 pm

Hello Bill, welcome to the forum!! Welcome

What Bethany said!! tongue

With one exception - I find it easy to sex them, males have what looks like a belly button, females have smooth tummies. happy


Last edited by Trish on Mon Sep 14, 2009 1:34 pm; edited 1 time in total (Reason for editing : spelling!!)
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Post  Bethany Tue Sep 15, 2009 10:25 am

I find it hard to describe how to sex them.... It's how I choose the words.... So well done Trish! Bravo

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Post  Hedgehoglover Tue Sep 15, 2009 10:41 am

welcome to the forum bill
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