I thought I had some plywood, but it was that thin MDF. It's quite strong but doesn't like water. I had a couple of batons left from when I replaced the tops of the waneylap fencing and some polymer roofing felt from when I replaced that on the shed roof a few years ago. So I made this. I stuck felt to the underside too and siliconed around the edges of the felt and the batons and some on the folds of the corners. So no water can get at the MDF. I stuck another baton on the bottom two inches in from one of the long sides, so there will be a slope towards the back when I fit it, it will over hang at the back, but the bottom of the front will stick out and be low enough to prevent any rain getting under it. I'll wait until tonight when he's eating his dinner before I put it on, so he'll be none the wiser.
We think 'arry has gone into early hibernation. He'd been eating lerss each night. He's put plenty of weight on and on his last few visits to his feed station when the trail camera has been focussed on it, you can hear his spines brushing against the top of the doorway as he enters. He's not been for three nights and the camera on the last two when it's been trained on his house, has shown no activity. I had a sneaky peek at him this afternoon and he was curled up in his house, touching a spine made him immediately curl up tighter. He has also blocked off the inner doorway with some straw to stop any draughts. So I think he must be OK. I wont put any wet food out for him for now. He's got water near his house and I will put som dry food on his patio at the front of his house. I'll leave the camera trained on his house, so if he does come out we'll know about it. Difficult to know what to do in this situation. He's very early if he is going into hibernation, he may not be well, but he doesn't need the trauma of more further attention. They don't alway hibernate without a break. We'll just have to wait and see.
It is early for him but there's nothing that you can do but to keep an eye on him. They sometimes come out of hybernation if the weather turns milder to get some food, but that can be tricky for them. If i were you I'd just leave the dried food out and fresh water, that's what i do.
Thanks for that, it's actually exactly what I did. My reasoning is that he knows where it is and if he's hungry enough he'll eat it. I made sure there were some mealworms with the dry food as I know how likes them.
These past few days haven't had the hedgehog feeding but it isn't cold enough, it's just like Doghouse Riley said about his.
I've still got the trail camera focussed on 'arry's house. Just in case he breaks his hibernation and I'll need to put more wet food out. I checked the SD card this afternoon and was surprised to see a video, rather than nothing.
The mouse arrived at almost to the minute of the night before. Check out the times on the videos. I was going to call him "Mickey" my wife said that was to obvious, so now he's Marcel.
Nothing today, But around 9.00pm last night 'arry set off the patio PIR. Must have decided to come out to have "a check on his estate." So we saw him do a tour of the patio but he didn't visit his food station. He then wandered back into the azaleas, so probably went home. He was looking OK. I put some wet food out for him around 10.00pm, but when I checked this morning he hadn't touched it. I've chucked that away and I'll leave out the other half of the sachet tonight. If he ignores that, I'll just carry on leaving the dry food out, in case he feels hungry. We've not seen Marcel for a couple of nights.
Still getting one coming around but don't eat much food, it seems to happen this time of year so there's probably enough live food for him or her.
Ours came last night, first wet food it ate in nearly two weeks, seems happy to stay in its house. So I'm not concerned.
