Last night he ate all his dinner at 9.00pm then came back just after midnight. (we know when he visits at night as he sets off the security light). As no more food had "magically appeared," he turned round and trotted off. There were still some pellets in a dish if he were really hungry. I guess he must have pretty much cleared our garden now of snails, slugs etc. He does spend quite a bit of time on this little patio, he may be eating the ants that must have a nest under one of the paving slabs. He's definitely getting bigger.
I spent a fair bit of time on Sunday doing some gardening, as usual I selected a couple of dozen 45s on my jukeboxes in the tea-house and let them play through whilst I was working. I can only conclude that 'arry is sick of Motown as I checked today and he's moved out from under the tea-house and into the hedgehog house we bought him which is under the azaleas against the side fence near the patio. Up 'til now he'd been ignoring it.
Yesterday we had one in the feeding station in the day, hubby looked it up and it said that they come out when they're pregnant or got babies. They don't stay in the same place all the time.
I don't think I mentioned it before. 'arry's feeding station has a lid. This makes an excellent base for the food as obviously the lid fits just as well upside down. I removed part of the lips in the lid that retain the lid in the normal fashion, so there was a smooth threshold for him under the entrance. I also removed the handles. If he poos or wees in there, it's easy enough to hold the lid over a drain and wash it all off with a hose and a brush every day. I had to reinforce with tape the bit above where the little block of wood and the hook attaches to a hole in the rim of the feeding bowl to stop him moving it, or tipping it over by standing on the lip. and rim of the other corner of the box which split when I dropped it.
I always think that 'arry is a bit like Rudolph Hess. In that he gets his food provided daily and has free range of the garden, but is still a captive. I've managed to convince my wife that he needs to be allowed to roam a bit and mix with other hedgehogs. We do get another one coming up our drive, but of course it can't get into the garden. Occasionally, we've seen 'arry caught by the camera sniffing the door in the fence between the corner of the garage and that of the house, so I guess he's aware of another hedgehog. Creating access for him to next door's garden was a bit of a pain. It had to be at the bottom of our garden as far away from the road as possible. I decided on here, near the bottom corner. I needed to stitch drill an access through the concrete base panel of the side fence. Easier said than done. There's no space in our garden, so I had to lie full length in the border under a rhododendron to get at it. In the end I made the hole in the top of the panel as the bottom of it was well buried. I had to drill over a dozen holes, then knock out the unwanted piece. There was a 1/4" reinforcing bar in it that I had to cut off using a hacksaw blade. To make sure there's no rough edges to the hole I made up some cement mortar to line the sides. Also a little concrete ramp up to the edge of the hole. So it won't get blocked up this side. I tidied up the other side of the hole so the access wasn't blocked. The cable is the low voltage supply to the two Japanese lanterns. I might get round to tidying that up. Job done! Well not quite, I've blocked up the hole with a slate for the time being. The house next door is presently unoccupied and the grass is two feet high, so 'arry could get lost in there. I'll wait until the house is sold and the new occupants have sorted out the garden. I'll tell them about the hole, so they don't block it up. Digressing, thinking about my first paragraph. I have a golfing pal who's ex-army, he was an engineer in a tank regiment. When stationed in Germany in the eighties, his wife had a part-time job driving the German equivalent of a "butty van." She often took their daughter on her rounds. One of her customers was a prison. She was allowed to drive into it. She supplied the guards and other staff with hamburgers etc., They shortly returned to England and he said their daughter delighted in telling her new schoolfriends that "she'd been in Spandau Prison." As she had on many occasions.
I've been experimenting with different varieties of Sheba 85grm catfood. The favourite appears to be chicken in terrine. I drain off th liquid so what's left is a bit like Span which I chop up. I put his mealworms on top of some dry hedgehog pellets. He clears his chicken and the meal worms during the course of the night. He's not that bothered about the pellets. I sorted out his feeding station in the morning, wash down the base and the inside of the cover over a drain then let it stand. I give both a dose of flyspray. this will have evaporated by the evening when I put out his food. I wash down the area in front of is feeding station and give it a go over with a deck scrubber. It doesn't take long and it keeps our patio free from the smell of hedgehog poo.
'arry isn't at all toilet trained, sometimes, when what's going in at one end today, what went in yesterday, may be coming out at the other end at the same time, given the evidence in his feeding station the following day. I keep a dustpan and brush on the end of the patio steps to clear up after him every day. However, on both Thursday and Friday nights, he'd actually had a poo in the dustpan! Perhaps he'd decided to clean up his act? Sadly, he missed the pan by about six feet last night and used the middle of the first step right in front of the French window doors! Maybe, he missed, "because it was dark." I checked his house the other evening whilst he was eating his dinner. He's made half a nest with the straw I put in there, which on previous occasions I found was completely flat. There were also a few euonymus leaves he'd dragged in. So I've started putting small amounts of hay near his house. This morning I checked and it had been disturbed, I don't know if he's throwing it about or trying to drag it in. I'll check tonight.
Last night I think that there were 3 of them, at 10.15pm i took barley out for his last wee and there was one by the front door. When we came back there was another one and when i took berry out there was a smaller one around the corner. This morning their food dish was outside the feeding station and empty and a lot of bits and a bit of the food on the floor.
Whilst 'arry was eating his dinner tonight, I had a check on his house. He's been making some alterations since I started occasionally leaving small handfulls of straw by his front door. He's obviously looking for material as he's brought in a giant lily leaf. He's creating a bit of a tunnel from the inner door and there's a nice bowl of straw, where he sleeps, difficult to see the depth in this photo. Although the lid has a roofing felt covering, I've noticed there appears to be evidence of the beginnings of a bit of damp under it at the far end. But the inside seems nice and dry. I think I've some plywood in the shed and a bit of spare roofing felt. So I can make an oversize false roof for it and just sit it on the top and put a brick on it.
