There have been a family of hedgehogs in my garden over the winter and the mother has recently disappeared

Question

There have been a family of hedgehogs in my garden over the winter and the mother has recently disappeared.

I have a hedgehog house in my garden and there was a mother hedgehog that was there over the winter and had two hoglets in the spring.

I had seen the two hoglets about the garden but not the mother for about a month so I did check the house about 2 weeks ago and all 3 were there. I then checked it a week later and the mother wasn't there in the day and I haven't seen it in the garden for a while. The 2 hoglets I have seen in the garden tonight.

I realise that a likely scenario is that the mother has died, but is there any other possible scenario?

I'm guessing that the hoglets would move away to find a new shelter rather than the mother doing so?

The only other thing is there is only really one way into the garden under a wooden gate which the hedgehogs have to squeeze to get under, although I have seen quite a few come in and out that way it could be a problem if one gets too big.

Answer 1

After posting the question a couple of weeks ago I found that a few days later the younger hedgehogs had moved in to the garden behind mine but regularly come back in to my garden just after dark. It looks as if they are fending for themselves fine so I guess if they are self sufficient it was a good time for the mother to move on. After leaving the hedgehog house for a week to make sure it wasnt being used I decided to clear it out. It smelled really bad, I think this could have been a good enough reason to move from it. I have also seen an adult hedgehog coming back into the garden just after dark too. Whether this is the mother or not I don't know but it must be living quite close as sometimes it has literally just got dark.

I have also read that hedgehogs sometimes even move during hibernation so more likely that they would move during the summer.