Feeding Station, Hedgehog House, Hedgehogs, nesting

What To Put In A Hedgehog House

Clare Stone | September 2, 2020

So you have your lovely new hedgehog house. What should you put in it? How can you make it more welcoming for prickly visitors? This is a question we get asked all the time here at Home and Roost. The answer is: it depends on what you are planning to use the house for.

What to Put in a Hedgehog House?

Hedgehogs will use a hedgehog house to feed in or to nest in. They will not use the same place for both activities. Hedgehogs don't like to eat where they sleep. Considering they are such messy eaters; this is probably a good thing!

So when you are thinking about what to put into a hedgehog house, the first thing you need to consider is how you want your local hogs to use it.

What to Put In a Hedgehog Feeding Station

Using your hedgehog house as a feeding station can be very helpful.

Lots of us put food out on our lawns or patios for hedgehogs. It's a great way to feed them. You can enjoy the entertainment of watching them eat.

But feeding hedgehogs out in the open can leave them exposed to predators as they eat. You also run the risk of feeding local cats and foxes rather than the prickly diners you had planned for.

Using your hedgehog house as a feeding station gives your hogs some protection as they eat, and can help to keep other animals away from the food as well.

If using your hedgehog box as a feeding station, we would suggest that you first line the bottom with newspaper. This will help with cleaning out, which you will need to do each day.

Place hedgehog food in a heavy, shallow dish in the far back corner of the box. Placing the food in the furthest corner from the entrance offers the hedgehog most protection from predators whilst eating.

You can choose wet or dry hedgehog food or pet food. Check out our full guide on what hedgehogs eat here.

Always use a heavy, shallow dish. Hogs are messy eaters and will do their best to tip over anything more elegant!

How Much Food?

This depends on how many are coming for dinner.

We suggest you start small and work up. If you're like me, you will quickly get frustrated if you find there is lots left every morning.

But it will take time for hogs to find the food and get comfortable eating it. So be patient and be prepared for some waste in the early days.

Eventually, you want to get to the point where there is just a little food left in the mornings. This will mean everyone will have had all they need.

Hedgehog rescuers, who have a hog in captivity, will feed around 4oz or 100gms of food each day. But when you offer food at a feeding station, remember that this is a supplement to their natural diet, and will not be the only thing they eat each night.

So you probably aren't going to need as much as 4oz per hog per night.

When To Feed?

You should put out food each evening as it starts to get dark.

Some people only leave the food out for a couple of hours and take it in before they go to bed.

This can work as a system. If hedgehogs know food is available in the early evening hogs may get into the habit of coming to your garden at that time. It can also help to minimise the risks of rats taking the food.

Most people, however, leave food out all night. Any leftover should be taken away the next morning. The dish should be cleaned, and the house cleaned out if need be. There will often be poop.

You should probably feed from March to November.

How about Drinks?

Yes, please! Always have a heavy, shallow dish of freshwater available.

Though we would suggest that you leave this outside of the feeding station. As we've mentioned, hogs are messy eaters, and even with the best-designed water dish, they are likely to paddle through it, tip it over and even poop in it. Leaving the water dish outside of the hedgehog house just helps keep the mess down.

The only time we would suggest you place the water inside the feeding station is wen nights are very cold, and it is likely to freeze if left out in the open.

Please make sure you only offer water, not milk. Hedgehogs are lactose intolerant, and milk will make them ill.

What to Put in A Hedgehog Nesting Box?

Hedgehogs use nesting boxes in 3 ways:

For daytime naps
For having and bringing up babies.
For winter hibernation

Daytime napping nests are scrappy affairs thrown together with very little care or attention to detail.

Breeding nests and hibernacula are much more carefully constructed.

But whatever the type of nest it is built from the same materials. These are leaves, grass, straw and twigs.

So, if you are hoping that your hedgehog box will be used for nesting, it will be useful to place a little of these materials in the box.

Hedgehog boxes are most often used by younger and less experienced hogs. So adding a little nesting material will encourage them and give them a helping hand.

Go carefully, though. Gathering nesting materials, bringing them to the nesting site and building the nest is a key part of hedgehog behaviour during preparation for hibernation and breeding. So don't over-fill the nest box.

It will be better to make sure that there are plenty of nesting materials close by. Natural is best. But if you do have a very tidy garden, you could buy a little straw or hay bedding and leave this close by.

Be sure not to block up the entrance to the nest box.

Food and Water?

As we know, hedgehogs don't like to eat where they sleep. So don't put food or water into a hog box that you intend to be used for nesting.

You could, however, place saucers of food and water close to a new nesting box to temp the hogs over and get them familiar with it.

Once you have a breeding or hibernating hog in residence, the food should be removed so as not to attract predators or other hogs.

It can be helpful to leave some water near to a nesting box though. Even in the winter, during hibernation, hogs will rouse several times for a drink.

How About a Camera?

As the price of good wildlife cameras comes down, more and more people are placing these in or near their nesting boxes and feeding stations.

You need to be out in your garden at night to see hogs feeding, And nesting and hibernating hogs should not be disturbed. So having a well-placed camera can be a great way of seeing a bit more of your visitors. Here's our guide to some of the best ones on the market.

Conclusion

So as you can see, when it comes to putting things into your hedgehog house, less is more. Marie Kondo would be proud of just how uncluttered hogs like to be.

For a feeding station, you need just food and newspaper.

For a nesting box, just a few leaves or some straw will be fine, the hog will do the rest.

We hope you've enjoyed this article and found it useful. If you have more questions or suggestions, we would love to hear them. Leave us a comment below.

And for more hoggy reading check out our hedgehog blog here.

Previous Next

43 comments

Trading cryptocurrencies is a lucrative opportunity for many. While crypto trading is profitable, it can be highly pernicious to the traders if not done properly. By proper means, one should do it with the right set of tools and the right mindset. Time waits for no one and the crypto exchage market is no exception. A plethora of cryptocurrencies, advanced tools, market volatility, and trading strategies may all cause confusion to the new as well as expert traders.

Fortunately, technology has made it possible for the traders to automate the exchage process including market analysis, order execution, predicting market trends, and more. Automated crypto trading is one of the best practices used by computer programs/trading bots to buy and sell cryptocurrencies. These software tools are intended to react to market changes to trade at the right moment. Traders can consider automate trading via the best crypto exchage platforms by making use of trading bots, advanced orders, and more.

Automated trading

So, automated trading is a method of participating in crypto or stock markets by using a program that executes pre-set rules for entering and exiting trades. As the trader, you will combine thorough technical analysis with setting parameters for your positions, such as orders to open, trailing stops, trailing stop loss orders, take profit, etc.

Automated trading methods enable you to carry out many or multiple trades in a small amount of time, with the added benefit of taking the emotion out of your decisions. That’s because all the rules of the trade are already built into the preset parameters. With some algorithms, the traders can even use the pre-determined strategies to follow trends and trade accordingly.

Automated crypto trading relies on algorithms which are actually the set of instructions used to solve computational issues. In the crypto sphere, algorithms can trade digital assets on behalf of the traders. And, the programs which use algorithms to trade are the bots. The best platforms offer a variety of bots to the traders which work based on preset conditions, signals, market analysis, and more. Usually, trading bots use APIs that help traders to interact with multiple exchanges.

Automated trading

What types of food are commonly recommended for feeding hedgehogs at a feeding station, and how does providing supplementary food contribute to the well-being of hedgehogs in the wild?
Visit us telkom university

I just could not depart your web site before suggesting that I actually enjoyed the usual info a person provide to your visitors? Is gonna be back ceaselessly to inspect new posts

You could certainly see your expertise within the article you write. The arena hopes for more passionate writers like you who aren’t afraid to mention how they believe. Always follow your heart.

Hey there just wanted to give you a quick heads up. The text in your post seem to be running off the screen in Ie. I’m not sure if this is a format issue or something to do with web browser compatibility but I figured I’d post to let you know. The design look great though! Hope you get the issue resolved soon. Many thanks

Whats up are using Wordpress for your site platform? I’m new to the blog world but I’m trying to get started and set up my own. Do you require any coding knowledge to make your own blog? Any help would be really appreciated!

Does your website have a contact page? I’m having a tough time locating it but, I’d like to send you an email. I’ve got some recommendations for your blog you might be interested in hearing. Either way, great website and I look forward to seeing it improve over time.

Quality content is the secret to interest the people to pay a visit the website, that’s what this web page is providing.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on meta_keyword. Regards

After going over a few of the blog posts on your website, I truly appreciate your way of writing a blog. I saved it to my bookmark website list and will be checking back soon. Take a look at my website as well and let me know your opinion.

Hey! I just wanted to ask if you ever have any problems with hackers? My last blog (wordpress) was hacked and I ended up losing many months of hard work due to no data backup. Do you have any methods to prevent hackers?

Hello there, I discovered your web site via Google while searching for a comparable topic, your site got here up, it seems to be great. I have bookmarked it in my google bookmarks.
Hello there, just was alert to your weblog through Google, and located that it’s really informative. I’m gonna be careful for brussels. I’ll be grateful if you continue this in future. Many other people can be benefited from your writing. Cheers!

Thanks for sharing such a nice thinking, post is pleasant, thats why i have read it completely

I love your blog.. very nice colors & theme. Did you make this website yourself or did you hire someone to do it for you? Plz reply as I’m looking to construct my own blog and would like to find out where u got this from. thanks a lot

My partner and I stumbled over here by a different web address and thought I might as well check things out. I like what I see so now i am following you. Look forward to looking at your web page yet again.