Western Daily Press (Saturday)
Hedgehogs – and a portly cat – enjoying late season feast
I RECKON I have enough hedgehogs in my garden these days to play a decent game of croquet with Alice in Wonderland.
Once I can get hold of some flamingos as mallets that is.
It has been too mild so far this winter for visiting hedgehogs to begin hibernating. And that may actually be a lifesaver for the younger ones – of which I have spotted at least two.
Hedgehogs need a certain amount of fat reserves to fuel them through months of torpor over the winter. Those born late in the year have less time to build up those reserves and run the risk of perishing.
So the more time the smaller hedgehogs have for feeding in autumn the better. As mentioned before in this column, most evenings I chuck a handful of special hedgehog biscuits, bought from a pet shop, onto the lawn as a supplement. They are probably much the same as dog or cat biscuits, and soft meat foods also work a treat.
Flicking on an outside light now and again I usually catch one in the act of crunching away on the biscuits – some hefty adults and others much smaller.
Occasionally I set up a remote camera to see what else pays a visit, and I haven’t had any foxes in a while, though it did catch a particularly fat cat showing plenty of interest in the biscuits.
This is a perilous time of year for hedgehogs, with natural food sources running low and temperatures turning colder. Slowing down one’s metabolism by hibernating – a behaviour shared by bats in the UK and dormice – is a wise survival tactic.
I believe those hedgehogs living in southern Europe where winters are much milder don’t need to adopt this strategy, and it may be that the hibernation period for our resident ‘hogs’ also lessens as a result of climate change.
I’ll carry on providing my garden hedgehogs with a little treat to help them gain weight before the first frosts. That is if they get to the handouts first. It may be that despite my best intentions I am simply feeding the neighbour’s portly cat...