MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
We will be in touch
had one of these for couple of years now, sometimes we get a hog in, mostly we dont.
last time i looked in it was soaking inside, so i thought hmmmm, rains getting in, ill change the hay and waterproof it a bit better.
dried the box out, fresh hay, tarp wrapped round it, its sitting on gravel so no pools of water, next day there was a hog asleep in it. bingo.
looked again yesterday, no hog and its soaking in there again. i spose the only answer is it must be hog piss?
quick look online suggests people clean out the boxes once or twice a year, so those of you that have boxes, do you have the same issue? cant be very nice for the poor ickle cuddly hog to sleep in, but should you be cleaning it out all the time or just let nature do what nature does?
cheers
Mine are just upturned plastic flower tubs, the curved sort that look like a large bird bath, with an entrance cut in one side, sitting on a square of shed roofing felt. Only one gets used, I think the others are a bit small.
That one was used last year, and after the hog died, probably due to age, I turned it over, and it was packed solid with leaves and grass, it came out in a solid lump! God knows how the hog managed to get inside.
At the moment, there’s a load of dried grass and rabbit hay in front of it which I dumped there, and that’s got a sort of tunnel through it, so I think it’s in regular use.
Once the leaves start dropping off my Acer and Silver Birch, I’ll sweep some up and put them under the hedge where the boxes are, which is always dry, so others can nest where they like.
We've been having some mega wet and windy weather recently. Is there anyway rain is splashing in the door or getting through the tarp if it's exposed? Presumably if it's very wet the hog will drag a lot of water in with it as well. Does the box have a vent hole as well as the door to help keep it slightly ventilated?
My parents have a well used hog box in the garden and no issued with water as you describe. It's an old wine crate with a felt roof so the base is a bit permeable between the boards.
Keep them off the ground, I stick ours on concrete paviers so they don't touch the damp earth. They seem to still get damp, so I change the straw regularly. I think HHs prefer natural homes, never get any long stays, just the occasional B&B in them.
We now have three of varying designs, this is the nicest...
[url= https://live.staticflickr.com/3848/18883114532_84f1a34370_c.jp g" target="_blank">https://live.staticflickr.com/3848/18883114532_84f1a34370_c.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/uLCU5d ]Hedgehog House[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/brf/ ]Ben Freeman[/url], on Flickr
[url= https://live.staticflickr.com/5558/18267694753_82db03169d_c.jp g" target="_blank">https://live.staticflickr.com/5558/18267694753_82db03169d_c.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/tQfHdn ]Hedgehog House[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/brf/ ]Ben Freeman[/url], on Flickr
Hope you have a ladder for the hog to climb up......
We found a hedgehog living behind the tumble dryer in the garage.
It slept under a plastic sack on the concrete floor.
There was only a small gap to squeeze through just amazing how flat it could make itself to get in.
We’ve been having some mega wet and windy weather recently. Is there anyway rain is splashing in the door or getting through the tarp if it’s exposed?
no, its pretty tightly wrapped against the weather, with the tunnel facing away from the open field at the back and into the sheltered side of the garden.
Does the box have a vent hole as well as the door to help keep it slightly ventilated?
nope, ive always thought that the air getting in from the tunnel would be adequate.
Keep them off the ground, I stick ours on concrete paviers so they don’t touch the damp earth.
as i mentioned, its not on damp earth, its on gravel so should drain well, maybe even better than being on a paver?
Hope you have a ladder for the hog to climb up……
😀
so are we thinking that this isnt hogpiss, but rain? ill take a pic tomorrow so you can get an idea of how it looks.
and we shouldnt pick the hog up and stick him in a big tupperware box whilst we clean it out, just leave it be if its asleep? only clean it out if its vacant and wet?
cheers
There was only a small gap to squeeze through just amazing how flat it could make itself to get in.
We found that we have a family in our back garden, virtually all sides are either brick walls or concrete barge boarded fencing and couldn't work out where they had got there without flying and then saw it squeeze through a gap one night.
Sound like a good set up!
A little vent might help let it dry out, very little air will circulate if it just has one opening.
Many hog box designs have an extra ~30mm hole with a small bit of pipe to prevent water leakage and help ventilation
Gone too cold too early. We have a few autumn juvenile who weren't up to hibernation weight and they've stopped feeding the last few nights. Hopefully it will warm up soon and they can get another month of bulking up in...
We've got a pet tortoise that roams freely around the garden once she's out of hibernation. I've made a very simple shelter made out of a plastic storage container about four times the size of the tortoise with a square entrance hole cut out of one the ends. The base of the container has also been cut out. It's then turned upside down and has a ply sheet that's been wrapped in asphalt placed on top as a removable roof. This allows us to then pick up the tortoise and put her in the greenhouse if the weather turns really foul or freezing. Anyway the floor of the shelter is just earth as the tortoise likes to dig down into it but we fill the shelter with straw to provide additional cover for her. Last year, around early October, just before the tortoise was about to go back in her hibernation box, I noticed straw had been pulled out of the shelter and there was a line of vegetation outside the entrance. Lifting the lid off the shelter I saw more leaves and strange bits and bobs. Wondering what my tortoise had been up to I put my hand into the straw and instantly felt a sharp pain on my finger tip and withdrew my hand. Inside it was a hedgehog. First time this has happened in 30 odd years of tortoise ownership. The garden's very tortoise proof which makes it hard for any hedgehogs to get in. There's one slatted gate so it must have squeezed in through there. Anyway we left it alone in the box. Our tortoise slept outside not sure whether she'd been pushed out or just simply hadn't returned to the shelter. Hedgehog didn't stay there long though. I guess I disturbed it.
Hedgehog didn’t stay there long though. I guess I disturbed it.
They're quite nomadic, you'll have one in a box for a few nights then it will move on elsewhere...
and we shouldnt pick the hog up and stick him in a big tupperware box whilst we clean it out, just leave it be if its asleep? only clean it out if its vacant and wet?
This.
They’re quite nomadic, you’ll have one in a box for a few nights then it will move on elsewhere…
And this.
No idea how often the one that’s regularly used under my hedge is actually occupied, the one using it last winter seemed to be there all the time, until it died, but there’s certainly activity around it now, I put a handful of dried Acer leaves around the entrance last weekend, and they’ve all gone, so when it dries up a bit I’m going to sweep loads under the hedge, which is against a fence and perfectly dry and sheltered underneath, the hogs use it as a highway from the patio where they feed to the other end of the garden, where the nest box is, and access under the fence into the estate behind, and they access next door either side under fences as well.
You can see how much dry leaves and grass the hog had stuffed inside:
Here’s the occupant outside in daylight, last February, which isn’t normal behaviour, although they’ll happily forage for food if it’s fairly mild, which it was.
The bit of fresh fern by the entrance had actually been bitten off a larger plant nearby and put there by the hog!
Clearly it felt like the place needed a bit of brightening up... 😁
We have an IR wildlife camera, you can keep tabs on who is moving in / out etc...
https://www.flickr.com/photos/brf/40971658030/in/album-72157692167980190/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/brf/42732884752/in/album-72157692167980190/
Difficult to tell if the nest ‘box’ is occupied, but the grass at the front changes all the time, this is how it looks at the moment...
To start with there was just some rabbit hay and dried grass inside with a largish pile outside, but more and more has been dragged into the entrance, with a sort of little tunnel, but even that’s getting filled in.
There’s getting to be a lot of leaves on the lawn and under the Acer now, so I’ll have a sweep up at the weekend and shove a load under the conifer hedge, so any wandering hogs will be able to just burrow in when they choose.
They’re still out ransacking the feeding stations in the evening, I put out three plates each evening, and they’re all pretty much picked clean the next morning, I checked earlier and I could see a prickly bum on top of on of the plates through the box entrance.