got hedgehogs in the garden most nights, made a hedgehog house and stuffed it with hay. we leave a little tray of cat biscuits out which get eaten, but we dont know if its by the hogs, cats, rats or anything else. we’d like to get something rigged up to see whats occurring in the garden, not just the hedgehogs but we’ve had foxes in the garden before too.

footflaps of this parish linked me to the camera that he uses but the bumph confuses me as im not very techy so thought id ask a few questions on a dedicated thread.

ideally id like it to just come on when it detects motion, including small creatures, and save the footage to look back at next day. im not sure how you access the footage, itd be good to be able to look at it on our chromebooks somehow, maybe via wifi? the one above looks to be battery operated, can they be hard wired too?

the price range above is about right, we dont want to be spending hundreds on something all singing, all dancing.

what options are out there?

thanks

Footflaps’ one looks OK, or choose a ltl acorn to fit your budget. Most of the trail/game cameras will have ir flash, the only thing to be aware of is that the exposure time gets longer when shooting ir so fast moving things can get blurred. Shouldn’t be a problem for hedgehogs but messes with owl photos.

At your price point you’ll be looking at sd cards for storage so it’s just a matter of swapping them out to view the photos. If you’re aiming for a fixed mount it’s worth checking access to the card as that could make changes awkward (eg ours has a flap on the bottom, which is fine when it’s strapped to a tree but the tripod mount is on the same flap so it becomes fiddly to change the card when using that)

thanks mate, just been googling up on them, especially the ltl acorn models. can get a bit spendy for decent quality cant they 🙂

bit confused with the IR flash thing, and mentions of low glow LEDs etc. im assuming theres no flash as such, as that would scare wildlife away? are they all just either a small red light, or no light at all?

I’ve got the same one as footflaps. It’s very easy to use, takes an SD card and 4 or 8 AA batteries (depending on how long you plan to leave it). I got it as our Jack Russell was telling us there was something under the floor. Turned out he was right….

[url=https://flic.kr/p/21oN62s]rat[/url] by Dave McGravy, on Flickr

Dead easy to use. Only records when it detects something in it’s field of view. Recording time can be adjusted from a few seconds to several minutes once it is triggered. It does have a small screen built in, which clips can be viewed on, but it’s best to put the SD into a computer to review the footage. It’s probably about 6″x4″, and waterproof (I think!). It’s great, unlike the trap, which the rat happily chewed on for a while before getting bored and walking off. In the next clip, the trap had been triggered, but no sign of ratty.

We have a mixture of cheaper Bushnell Nature and Trophy cameras at work, they’ve been fine .

I’ve bought and used quite a few different models over the last few years and would generally suggest a “keep it simple” approach. The setup of the camera in position is by far the biggest factor and sometimes more features means you don’t get the shots – especially if you aren’t watching the footage back very often. Poor focus, false triggers from wind on nearby vegetation and low ground mist around dawn can all be issues with placing the cameras in slightly the wrong place, as well as looking just off to the side of where all the wildlife is 🙂

I’ve used low-glow led cameras and sometimes they are worthwhile, depending on what animals / behaviour you are hoping to film. When the cameras activate, the IR illuminator LEDS glow red. It isn’t like a torch or flash, but in very dark environments animals do notice it – lots of videos I have show animals looking startled / curiously at the camera. How much that matters depends on the animal, but for badgers, deer, hedgehogs and the like, I don’t personally think it’s a big issue.

All the ones I have used are motion-activated, with a choice of video clips of different durations or still photos. I mostly use 10 second video clips.

ideally id like it to just come on when it detects motion, including small creatures, and save the footage to look back at next day. im not sure how you access the footage, itd be good to be able to look at it on our chromebooks somehow, maybe via wifi? the one above looks to be battery operated, can they be hard wired too?

Re the one I have…

It detects motion and saves clips to the SD card (not included).

To watch footage, take out SD card, stick in laptop and look at video clips.

No wifi connect.

Battery powered 4/8 AAs.

No hardwire option (although you could DIY if you wanted). Apparently it can last months on 8xAAs.

well, i was discussing it at work and one of the lads says hes got a camera i can borrow. its only basic but thought its worth having a look first.
no manual, so looked online, pretty complicated to work out all the settings, and it only seems to do video in the daytime, just photos at night which is a shame.

anyways, set it up first night as a gamble, it seemed to take some rubbish pics of nothing. had another fiddle and set it up last night and it worked! couple of nervy moments when we were thinking “are we sure thats not a rat??” but i think the other pics are pretty conclusive it doesnt have a tail and it is indeed a hog 🙂

is it a rat?

nah, looks like a hog face

thats it heading towards the hog house(white entrance at the back of the shed). plate of kitten biscuits at the entrance.

defo a hog face

shame theres no video, itd be good to see if it does actually go into the house or not, im not sure its worth £80 to find out tho.

He looks very small, any chance you can weight him to see if he’s up to hibernation weight (600g)?

ah ok, you think thats small enough to be a problem do you?

every evening at the other end of the garden we see one under our tree taking some food. he never seems to go to the camera/box end of the garden, so im not sure its the same one.

if its a different hog then we never see the ‘camera hog’ to check him, but this evening if ‘hog 1’ is under the tree ill take a pic and also weigh him. he seems normal hog size tho…..

well, back from work now, seen one in the garden, brought it in and its 300g. quickly set up an ‘asda type grocery crate’ lined with a towel (will buy some newspaper tomorrow), put out some food and water and left it in the spare room in the dark.

will ring about tomorrow, see if a vet or hedgehog preservation bod can help out. if not i may need some assistance in the best way forwards. i know its 300g, but it still seems normal hedgehog size to me and i know the advice is to intervene if less than 600g, but it still feels like we’ve taken it away from its mam or something.

advice please?

update….. got in touch with a hedgehog care place late last night, they answered a message on facebook and we said we’d take it over today. nearest one was a 60 mile round trip but hey, its a cute hedgehog right? 😉

it was a female weighing 307g, and had mange i think the woman said. she also said it would definitely have died if we hadnt acted, so that gives us a nice warm feeling.

quite interesting to see what she does, she cares for 90 at the moment, all in separate boxes! 😯
every day from 3am to about 10pm shes cleaning and feeding them all, thats some devotion.

was interesting to see how she set all the boxes up, so that gives us some confidence in being able to help others if we see them.

Found another last night near our hogbox, weighed it, just over 400g. looks like another 60 mile round trip!

told the hog lady id be back over tuesday before i go away for work again, give us chance to see if theres any more over tonight and tomorrow night, then i can take them all at once (thats if ive got enough stotage boxes).

she actually offered to come and get it at her own expense, but i cant let her do that, ill go back over. lovely little things but i hope theres no more now 😀

Nice work.

it was a female weighing 307g, and had mange i think the woman said. she also said it would definitely have died if we hadnt acted, so that gives us a nice warm feeling.

Well done!

Our local shelter has over 200 Hogs in hospital, mainly underweight.

The bad news, is not seen our local chap for several weeks now, so I’m guessing he’s been run over 🙁

I do my bit by buying our local shelter food every month, as they are always running out and appealing for help…

just back from another 60 mile trip for hog 2, im shamefully hoping theres no more hogs now 😳
what started as a little experiment building a little hog house (unused so far) and setting up a camera to watch the cute ickle hedgehogs has ended with us finding out about ‘over-wintering’, weighing them on kitchen scales and discovering that we have responsibilities towards them if they wont last the winter. no problem if theres a place nearby, but sadly there isnt and its not a pleasant journey to the hog care home, especially on a weekday.

we’ve been checking the camera since we brought hog 2 in, the first night not a sausage and the food was left alone, last night the camera messed up for some reason but the food had gone. im hoping it was a cat as we’ve seen one round there 😀

away at work for a few days from tomorrow but ill leave the camera out, hope it works, and hope my wife MTF’sU if she sees one while im away, shes scared of holding them at present 😀 the dogs also going divvy, wont settle, just keeps whining at the door to the ‘hog room’ 😆

on the plus side, its good to feel we’re helping them, and a few weeks ago id never have thought id have been happy to hold a hedgehog! lovely little things, bit smelly tho (big bobs for such a small creature!) and messy too, the plates of food and water we leave in the box are trashed when we check and clean them out 😀 also feel a bit sorry for them knowing theyre going to be stuck in a small storage box for a few months instead of roaming free, must be really frustrating but i spose its either that or die 😐

as this started out as a ‘night vision camera’ thread, could i ask for the benefit of your experience with camera settings please? pretty much all the pics ive taken have had a real shiny bright light on them somewhere, most have been ruined and deleted. i cant show you them as like i say, theyre deleted, but this is the sort of thing i mean, but the deleted ones were worse….

i mentioned the pics last night were totally ruined, they were just pure white light, nothing else. theres no visible flash on the camera, i know this as its taken pics of me leaving the food out, and you wouldnt know the camera was there. if i go digging into the settings, is there anything i can change to have the pics more like this?

thanks

just wanted to say good work sadexpunk

well its hog time again apparently, mrs ex-p says shes seen one the last couple of nights.  just called me out to the garden to say shes seen it again, so i nipped out, picked it up and weighed it.  550g.  i couldnt remember what the cut-off weight was, for some reason i was thinking 400 or 450 so put it back in the garden.  searched for this thread again and it seems its 600g, so maybe i should have kept it.

on the plus side, its still quite mild, and its only slightly under, so it may be ok for winter.  theres a good chance ill see it again over the next week or so, would you be keeping it at that weight for the hog sanctuary?

550g is ok. Best to leave them right now as we’re in the 2nd hogglet rearing period, so could be a mum with hogglets somewhere she needs to tend to. NB sexing them is trivial as their bits aren’t hidden at all, if you turn them upside down and see a penis, it’s a male.

I’ve released three this year, inc two females, so hoping to see some baby HHs soon.

Best thing you can do is put food out to help them fatten up for hibernation. We put out 300g of dog food every night in two feeding stations and it’s all gone come morning.

550g is ok.

excellent, thats put my mind at rest.

Best to leave them right now as we’re in the 2nd hogglet rearing period, so could be a mum with hogglets somewhere she needs to tend to.

what are the rough dates for rearing periods?  and what size would you consider in need of rescuing mid-october?

Best thing you can do is put food out to help them fatten up for hibernation. We put out 300g of dog food every night in two feeding stations and it’s all gone come morning.

yup, always leave a plate of kitten biscuits and a bowl of water out each night near our hedgehog house.  which by the way has never been used by them.  pah! 😀

thanks

FF do you have a night camera to see what is eating the food…we have hogs and also cats as they like the hog food!

We got a great little video of a Hog limbo’ing under the gate at the side of the house on one of it’s night walks. A little food and nice garden environment and it’s great for them.

FF do you have a night camera to see what is eating the food…we have hogs and also cats as they like the hog food!

We have four cats, so I’ve had to build HH only feeding stations, which only they can squeeze into. We also have foxes, hence the large pile of bricks. I’ve caught a fox moving bricks to try and get in, but they can’t budge a pile.

[url=https://flic.kr/p/2aWhMYX]Small HH Oct 10[/url] by Ben Freeman, on Flickr

[url=https://flic.kr/p/2bdWpYb]HH Feeding Oct 10[/url] by Ben Freeman, on Flickr

I noticed the coconut mat at my back door was being moved around and then I saw a hedgehog getting jiggy with it. Then it started taking a dump at the same time. Bit out of order. I’m just now wondering about the shave, shower and shampoo.

Then it started taking a dump at the same time.

They do that in their food bowls as well! No table manners.