Encouraging Hedgehogs Into Your Garden
Access
If you’ve already read ‘Hedgehogs Need Room to Roam’ you will understand the importance of providing access - can hedgehogs actually get into your garden? Providing hedgehog holes, 13cm or 5 inches square, is essential for creating ‘hedgehog highways’ between gardens.
Habitat
Leaving a wild section in a secluded area of your garden may encourage hedgehogs, especially if it encompasses hedges, bushes and long grass as these are ideal habitats for hedgehogs. It will also encourage the natural wild food that hedgehogs need to stay healthy. Areas with leaf litter, twigs and moss offer materials for hedgehogs to make nests to sleep in, raise hoglets and hibernate.
Hog Logs
Hog Logs - a decaying wood pile encourages insects such as beetles, earwigs, slugs, millipedes and centipedes. Arranged in a pile with leaf litter, it may attract hedgehogs to nest there.
Food
A hedgehog’s diet consists of beetles, caterpillars, crickets, centipedes, millipedes, earwigs, cockroaches, slugs, worms and other insects such as moths and butterflies. Hedgehogs will also eat small rodents, birds, bird eggs, frogs, small reptiles and snakes. If available, they may also eat some native mushrooms, berries, seeds, and fruits.
Native plants (such as honeysuckle, dog rose, hawthorn and blackthorn, in the uk) are caterpillar food plants for a wide range of moths, who then lay eggs on the leaves. The new caterpillars often descend to the ground to pupate before becoming an adult, offering great food for hedgehogs.
It can be helpful to give hedgehogs a nutritional boost when they emerge from hibernation and in the run up to hibernation in order to rebuild or build-up fat reserves. However, the right food is essential to avoid making hedgehogs sick. A high protein cat food (without chemical additives) containing less than 15% fat and no pea fibre is a good start.
Water
A clean, chlorine free, fresh water source is essential for hedgehogs. A healthy pond can provide a welcome source of water and encourage a variety of additional natural food sources for hedgehogs, but remember to make sure it is hedgehogsafe!
Here is some basic guidance on how to construct a pond or mini pond.
Accommodation
Hedgehogs will utilise leaf litter, twigs and moss to construct nests to sleep in, raise hoglets and hibernate. Suitable locations can be under hedges, bushes, logs, compost heaps or sheds. Commercial hedgehog homes are available to buy or you can construct your own hibernaculum. If you have a hedgehog hibernating in your garden (between November to March in the UK) – do not disturb it.
Finally, hedgehogs face many daily hazards. You can learn how to protect one of our most beloved and endearing British mammals here.
