Hedgehogs stopped feeding

Hi everyone, we've been feeding hedgehogs since they came out of hibernation this year. We are very lucky and sometimes get three or four a night, though that has dwindled naturally as the year has gone on. I have two hog feeding stations and use dry biscuits, semi-moist feed, and a wet cat-food style food, rotating them every few days, but usually offer more than one food type each night. The hogs have without fail been clearing all food (and leaving their little, or sometimes big, presents around the garden to prove it...). As of about three weeks ago, they stopped taking any food - just very abdruptly stopped. I use trail cams so i know that hogs are still visiting regularly, but they ignore the feeding stations now. They don't even go inside them anymore. Just wondered if anyone has had a similar experience. Could it be they have other priorities right now, like building hibernation nests, or maybe there is more natural food to forage (we have a very 'buggy' garden and lots of slugs right now). In previous years we've had it where hogs stop visiting for a few weeks/months and then turn up again, but never had it where they are still around, but not taking any food at all (wood mice are happy with this situaion i should add - more for them!). It just seems so sudden and abrupt!

  • Hi Neil, welcome to the forum, have no experience of hoggies visiting but not eating ... I have been lucky this year with Mum & Dad since April & four babies fattening up for a few weeks now with one, maybe two, sharing my hoghouse!
    Are you on Facebook? There's a big group called 'Hedgehog Highways' with thousands of posters offering advice, lots of rehabbers too, many people with lots of experience ... might be that you will get an answer from there as the hoggie following on here is very limited!
    If you do not use FB then I am quite willing to post on your behalf!
  • Thanks Wendy. I don't want to burden you with posting on my behalf, but if you really don't mind and you think it would be a better avenue for other experiences and advice then that would be most appreciated - thank you for the kind offer (but no worries if you don't get round to it!). I don't really do social media myself!

    That's great, sounds like you have a busy little hog family there - i hope those baby hogs fatten up! Yes it's the first year ours have just stopped like this. I even tried different feeding stations, different locations in the garden, but can't tempt them, which is fine i guess as long as they are getting something to eat! They have also stopped drinking from the water dish which they always used to do. Trail cam footage shows them legging it past it all now as though they are on very important business!

    If you do get any helpful replies from FB i'd be really grateful if you could paste them here, but don't worry if not! I will look into it myself as it can be a really useful resourcce for this kind of thing.

    Thanks again!
  • Hi Dave,

    Thanks for your reply. I'd also read that about slugs, so it was a bit of a long shot/wishful thinking! That's really interesting about the food supply - and i hadn't really considered that. I am on a new bag of dry bicuits - which chimes with what you are saying, but i also provide semi-moist and wet food, which also are ignored. Although i'd be super unlucky if all the food sources were bad, it could be that the new biscuits are dodgy, and that has caused the hogs to avoid the feeding stations by association. My next idea is to put the food out under cover but not in the feeding stations, to see if that makes a difference (will have to be strategic in case any cats visit in the night!).

    Neil
  • Mine here have always devoured the Tesco brand kitten biscuits but they recently changed the formula & hoggies all over the Country have refused to eat them ... this caused much angst as you can imagine but the posters on 'HH' all chipped in with what successes, or not, they'd had with alternative dry & wet food! I personally tried Purina but it's quite pricey ... found Iams kitten on Amazon slightly more reasonable, also started to put out Whiskas chicken in jelly (tins more reasonable than sachets) for the babies in order to fatten them up quickly, seems to have been a successful combination so far! Wet food has to be fresh every day as flies are laying eggs in anything left over, usually only the jelly!
    Certainly I will post your question, see what response there is!

     Edit:  Have now posted, question has gone to Admin for their approval to publish, hope for replies soon!

  • Ouch! That's mighty expensive in comparison!!
    It's the grain proportion to protein content that has to be checked as many really cheap ones are bulked out with too much cereal!

    I started off using Spike's dry & semi- moist but not very well received by my original Mum who turned up with three babies in tow out of the blue three years ago now!

  • Wendy, Dave, thanks for this and for the information and links regarding food - really interesting. I had no idea about the grain mould thing. I have also used Spike's semi-moist and wet food for years and its been a success for our hoggers. The dry biscuits i started using more recently are Wildlife World and come in a compostable bag (hence switching to try them). The hogs were chomping them down and got through a whole bag. Then i started the new bag, and it's during that they have abandoned the food altogether - soon after opening it. I do still put out Spikes semi-moist and wet on rotation, so they have access to alternatives some nights, but they still don't take it and i end up throwing away what the wood mice don't eat (although i have reduced the amount i put out to save waste).

    Wendy - thanks for posting to FB for me! I will trial some feeding without the feeding station boxes i've always used and will update in a few days on that.

    Incidentally - when do hogs have later litters? I'd read they can have two litters in a year and sometimes have one into autumn? Just wondering if there are babies somewhere - but it feels too late in the year for that?
  • Well done for coping with saving babies overwinter Dave, lot of work & smelly mess involved too ... did just read on 'HH' about using small drop of tippex on spine for easy ID ... might have to resort to this if I have to weigh any youngsters here around end of November! Fortunately very mild in my area of E Kent so still time for them to feed up for successful hibernation!
  • Hi Neil, post was approved & replies coming in ...
    1. My first thing to check is that access to the garden is still open. Can hedgehogs still get there or has someone had a new fence installed without thinking about the hedgehogs?
    They do come and go and it is possible that they simply are finding food elsewhere, including naturally, before they get to this garden.
    2. Hi Linda, the hogs are still visiting as seen on trailcam but just not interested in the food anymore
    3. Lots of natural food or neighbours started feeding them
    4. They do come and go as they please , we have about 8 in back garden , only been seeing 3 on the camera , sometimes if it goes abit cold and wet they stay put , possibly females are busy with hoglets.I cut back on the amount of food but we feed all year as we live in the south , proper winters don,t happen down here anymore.Their Royal Hogness like us to always be at their beck and call.
    5. Yes I had this last year at about this time and was beside myself!
    They’ve done it this year too, eating intermittently.
    I dropped the wet food bowl last year in the end and stuck to dry food only.
    6. Many thanks for all comments so far
    7. Maybe someone else has started putting food down for them?
  • Few more comments Neil ...
    I have been getting less hog visits over the past few weeks with some nights the food looking like it has not been touched. I live in North Yorkshire and we have had a mixture of cold, damp, windy and also still some mild weather. Not sure where the hogs have all gone!

    I usually have two or three but all seemed to stop coming all of a sudden which was a little worrying, nearly everyone seems to have had the same happen to theirs. bit bothered about one that I was watching that was a baby earlier in the year that wasn't big enough for hibernation yet.

    Mine stopped eating for a bit and I was getting fewer visitors, but this week there have been several visits starting from 8pm all the way through to 6.30am and all three bowls were empty this morning (except for crumbs)

    They can be finnicky

    Mine has stopped eating the wet food and suddenly only eating the dried that they haven't really bothered with before.