[evie2]

Aww

[orionsquare]

Here's a pic of my cream legbar in the guineapig hutch which I use as my hens' laying box. They all love it! ... and so did a hedgehog one night when I forgot to shut the door. It decided to sleep in the box. I had to evict him for trespass as I found one of my hens squawking really loudly in the morning when she tried to get into the box to lay -- she must have sat on the hedgehog and went  :blink:

[Spana]

Ah, she looks right cosy  :happy:

You're lucky  I haven't seen a hedgehog for years 

[Lindeggs]

You're lucky  I haven't seen a hedgehog for years 

Oh what a change of perspective for me!  We have hedgehogs here in NZ and they are classed as a pest - like rats and ferrets.  They eat the eggs of ground-nesting birds and will even kill the chicks when they are small and vulnerable.  So here hedgehogs are considered an enemy of the chicken-keeper... and they are everywhere!

It just goes to show how an animal that is important and valued in its home territory can become such a pest when it is taken somewhere it doesn't belong.

Sorry for the thread diversion!  Please continue with the lovely photos. 

[evie2]

It never occurred to me that hedgehogs would have been taken to NZ, do they have no native predators Lindeggs?

Very pretty hen

[hillfooter]

It never occurred to me that hedgehogs would have been taken to NZ, do they have no native predators Lindeggs?

Very pretty hen

Hedgehogs are very good swimmers did you not know Evie

As for natural preditors well there's Lindeggs and boy scouts who cover them in clay and cook them in an open fire.  The clay sets so that the prickles come out when they eat them.  Yum! Or something like that I'm lead to believe.
HF

[Lindeggs]

Yes hedgehogs were brought to NZ along with all kinds of other pesky Northern critters!  Fortunately they stopped before they got to the foxes. 

NZ has no native land mammals at all, and the large carniverous birds were hunted to extinction before Europeans got here, so there are no predators for the rabbits, possums, rats, ferrets, hedgehogs etc.  (We also have no snakes.)

NZ was the ultimate paradise for birds before humans and our interfering ways.  If there was one place in the world that would be perfect for chickens, this was it.  The place used to be crawling with flightless, defenceless, rather naive birds.

[Spana]

The foxes and badgers have finished them off here.  We use to find the odd skin about but not for a long time now. They are eaten from underneath, their soft bellies dont have prickles.

Its just numbers that turns a good to see creature into a pest isn't it.

 I have a pair of Canada geese fly in every spring and nest here.  I count the days to when the eggs hatch, and watch the little ones grow and then fly off. :happy:
But in other parts of the country they are  a pest  and do such a lot of damage to crops, I can understand why they are not liked.

[evie2]

Mental picture, hedgehog with water wings on

We're lucky enough to have hedgehogs of various size and age in our garden and unlucky enough to have foxes and a badger

[hillfooter]

Yes hedgehogs were brought to NZ along with all kinds of other pesky Northern critters!  Fortunately they stopped before they got to the foxes. 

 The place used to be crawling with flightless, defenceless, rather naive birds.

Like Nottingham on a Saturday night after last orders then.

HF

[joyfull]

excuse me but I was bought up in Nottingham!!

[hillfooter]

excuse me but I was bought up in Nottingham!!

I met Carole in Nottingham Clifton College when I was in Loughborough.  The things I could tell you about Nottingham and Trent Bridge boat club nights, but then I suppose you know them.

Happy days.
HF

[joyfull]

Oh yes I was a frequent visitor to the boat club at the side of the trent on the student nights and the Dancing Slipper - that was where me and Jim met 

[Lindeggs]

Yes hedgehogs were brought to NZ along with all kinds of other pesky Northern critters!  Fortunately they stopped before they got to the foxes. 

 The place used to be crawling with flightless, defenceless, rather naive birds.

Like Nottingham on a Saturday night after last orders then.

HF

 

[JaK]

The little fluff balls that hatched in the summer are getting bigger. Here are some of them digging up the garden.