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What you can do to help and encourage hedgehogs into your garden:

Having hedgehogs visit you is amazing, you get to watch them and you may even be lucky enough for them to make your garden their home.

You may already have visitors but you've just not seen them, look out for signs such as hedgehog poo.

Firstly they need to be able to get access into your garden. Create hedgehog highways between gardens, these need to be the size of a CD case and be made in fences, gates or even walls but have a look around your garden, you may already have them in place, check the gaps under gates etc. Highways allow hedgehogs more opportunity to find food, mates and nesting sites.

Make your garden a sanctuary

Leave a small area of your garden to nature, let the grass grow long and sow wildflower seeds. This provides good coverage for hedgehogs to hide and to nest in plus food from the visiting insects.

Make your garden a safe place by covering drain holes, ensuring there is an escape ramp from ponds and tidy up rubbish that could trap or entangle hedgehogs.

Provide a nesting box: Nesting boxes offer hedgehogs a home to rest during the day, to rear their young and to hibernate during winter. These can be shop bought or home made using what you already have such as: bricks and a paver, a gap under a shed or a wood pile. Make sure it is out of direct sunlight and prevailing winds and place them under shrubs or trees for protection from the weather.

Provide food and water daily

Hedgehogs often struggle to find enough food and water on their nightly forage so providing it daily makes their life a little easier. It’s also a great way to encourage hedgehog visitors into your garden.

Hedgehogs like puppy, dog, kitten and cat tinned food, preferably not fish flavour as they are not keen and often leave it. They prefer jelly and paste tinned food as the gravy type food can give them an upset tummy.

They also like cat or kitten biscuits (not dog biscuits as they can often be too big)

Using a  feeding station keeps the food out of the weather and it can also stop other animals such as cats from getting to the food. These can be home made using what you already have: such as a plastic tub, wood or just place under a table or chair.

Do not leave out milk, hedgehogs are lactose intolerant and giving them milk will kill them.

Mealworms are also very harmful: they cause metabolic bone disease and robs the bones of calcium and makes them weak. It causes suffering and will ultimately result in the hedgehog’s death.

Other dangerous foods include sunflower hearts and peanuts.

Bread has no nutritional value at all.

Garden safety

Always check before using a strimmer or lawn mower in long grass or weeds, also check compost heaps before forking over. It only takes a few minutes and it could save a hedgehogs life.

Check before carrying out any major garden work such as removing sheds, decking and landscaping gardens. Hedgehogs don’t always nest in the most appropriate places and love to hide and nest under many things for shelter.

Ensure fruit netting and anything else that could trap a hedgehog is kept up off the ground and stored safely when not in use.

Do not use pesticides, these can kill hedgehogs and other wildlife that eat the poisoned bugs. Slug pellets are also dangerous as the hedgehog can eat the poisoned slug

If you have any questions please ask, we are happy to help and advise you.

This page was last updated on 31-Oct-2022 09:32:49.

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