Encouraging hedgehogs

[The Sage of Brouhaha]

Does anyone know any good ways of encouraging hedgehogs? I'd put down food, but I expect the fox would eat it before any hedgehogs found out about it. Do piles of wood or hedgehog houses work? I could do with some helpful paws around the garden.

[TEB]

Yep I be interested too, since I escaped to the country I haven't seen a single one (or road kill thankfully) reckon they have moved to a suburbia des res.

[Nicos]

Fresh water is a must for all animals- could you create a safe(ie shallow) water feature??
We created a small , shallow stream in the corner of the garden using a pump and paddlestones on pond liner.
The hedgehogs come and drink at night cos there are always droppings on the pebbles in the morning.
I think the cost of the electricity is well rewarded.
We also leave sheltered piles of leaves for them to hibernate in over winter.
One of ours was a rescue hedgehog and will let you stroke it's face!(yes- we have tried to dehumanise it but with no success )
We also have overgrown country garden type borders and never use slug pellets!

[Nicos]

Just a thought- why not put your name down for a rescue hedgehog at your nearest wildlife hospital/rescue centre? They often have a waiting list of a couple of years, but it would be well worth the wait!

[rustylady]

Hedgehogs are creatures that come and go as they please. Make your garden as wildlife friendly as you can - leave a pile of logs or bricks in a sheltered spot out of the way so they can make a home, provide fresh water if you can, and just leave them to it. I found one in my back garden last year and I have no idea how it got in. Garden is fenced all the way round apart from a small gap under the side gate.

[vertangie]

We have an outdoor swimming pool in this village of ours and one got caught in the filters so we took it in overnight and had to keep it safe so we could take it to the rescue center.

They rather like chicken cat food if you need to save one yourself ever but they generally eat bugs (slugs are a fave). Males are more common than females but it's almost impossible to tell.

They should be having young around this time of year and global warming is seriously upsetting their winter hibernation so if you do encourage them into your garden you may need to keep an eye out if there's a sudden warm spell after they should have hibernated as they've been known to wake up and come out in which case I was told to feed tem until they go back in.

Once you start feeding them you can't stop though, they will come back and become quite dependent on you.

milk and bread are absolute no's for them but something a lot of people put out, it's apparently got virtually no value to them but they will fill up on it. rather like feeding bread to birds.

They do like wood piles and sheltered spots but a wild border is a great thing to have. We have conifers down one side of the garden and wild flower down the other and we know a fox, owls, field mice and other things have the run of the garden at night. We find the owl pellets and we hear them, the dog goes nuts when he thinks the fox is out there and the cat like to watch the birds (she doesn't hunt fortunately). So even if you don't get hedgehogs you should get quite an interesting array of wildlife anyway.

Hope this helps a bit.

Angie

[Madasafish]

We have local foxes: hole 50 metres away from garden. Only time I saw a hedgehog it was eaten next day... or was it the badger wot dun it?

[Nicos]

We have local foxes: hole 50 metres away from garden. Only time I saw a hedgehog it was eaten next day... or was it the badger wot dun it?

Main killers of hedgehogs are humans (road kill)
followed by foxes, then badgers.

Twas most probably the foxes eh??

[dinah gale]

Leaving lots of leaves around is helpful. I sat in the garden with a mug of tea really early one morning and watched a hedgie collecting leaves which it piled up in a corner to rest in during the day. I'm told they make a number of these day-shelters in various locations. I hoped I might 'adopt' it by leaving pet food out at night but it had its own ideas about where it wanted to live.

A warning. Someone on our allotments found a hedgehog strangled in pea netting. It had become entangled and strangled itself trying to get extricated. Doesn't bear thinking about if you like the little creatures and want them about to eat the slugs. I'll use wire netting or sticks in future.

[Flummery]

I kept finding lots of leaves (dead privet leaves from under the hedge which I'd missed when clearing up from the last clipping) in heaps under the eaves of our garden room. A wren has been trying to make a nest on a batton about 2" by 3" and as fast as she pushed the leaves onto it they fell off the back. Himself is going to put a little shelf up there for her. The only thing that bothers me about leaving piles of leaves around deliberately is that I might find them full of slugs and snails. Got so many already I don't need to attract them!