a Really simple hedgehog feeder

We still put food out for our local hedgehogs most nights. 

 

Our old hedgehog feeder has put in good service, but the wooden base is now rotting away. 

 

So its time to come up with a replacement.

 

Our old hog feeder has been in use for around two and a half years. It cost nothing, as it was made from an old fat-ball bucket and a few bits of scrap wood.

However, the plywood base is now rotten and the bucket is quite difficult to clean properly.

So looking around for inspiration, I noticed a little stack of Really Useful Boxes in the cupboard in my man-cave. I emptied the contents of a 12 litre box and ran the rule over it.

This box is roughly 470 x 270 x 150mm, and the end section has an interesting recess which is about 120 x 120mm. Its pretty much an ideal size, and it has a nice lid with an overhanging lip which will help keep the rain out.

The lid is held on with two clamps, which should make it easy to take off and put back on when topping up the hog food or giving the box a clean.

After extensive local research, I can now report that we definitely do not have any square bodied hedgehogs. So there is no reason to cut a square entrance hole in the box. In fact, cutting a square hole could lead to weakness at the corners and may result in the plastic cracking.

So I simply used a cutting disk in my Dremel to make a free-hand hole with rounded corners. At its narrowest points, the hole is only 105mm wide x 110mm high. Any hogs bigger than that shouldn't be eating GoCat!

As you can see, my wife likes to line the bottom of the box using this weeks Radio Times  ...and so its a short walk down the garden, in the dark, if I want to see what time Fred Dibnah is on telly!

Obviously this new feeder is infinitely more expensive than the old one, but for less than 7 quid and less than 1 hours work ...its a bargain.

 

the new hog feeding station: water, GoCat biscuits & rat bait

We will be keeping a close eye on visitors via our trail-cam. If a local cat manages to get its head inside the box, I'm quite prepared to add a simple internal vertical baffle, which will create a side-ways detour.