12 Ways to Make your Garden Hedgehog Friendly:
Hedgehogs can travel 2km in a night. Help and encourage them through gardens by providing 13cm access holes in fences and gates.
Provide hibernation/shelter boxes filled with straw in shady parts of the garden, and feeding station boxes with wet/dry cat foods or Brambles hedgehog food, and put flower pot saucers of fresh water around the garden.
Cover all drains so that hedgehogs cannot fall in or be poisoned by what drips from your pipes.
Lift netting to 30cm above ground at night to prevent them getting entangled.
Poisons, baits and trap kill any creature they attract, so make sure they are placed in specialised boxes out of the reach of Hedgehogs. The use of chemicals on plants, and using lawn treatments, will kill off the food chain for hedgehogs and birds… and could (if ingested) kill them too, so consider gardening organically – you can find useful advice here
Garden bags, piles of rubbish, leaf piles, compost heaps, under sheds and decking, unmanaged borders, clumps of grass and bamboo are all very attractive to Hedgehogs to nest in. Check all areas for life before clearing and using sharp equipment like strimmers.
Sheds, garages and summer houses with “stuff” on the floor makes interesting nest and hibernation areas too. Keep the floors clear of clutter and check for Hedgehogs before closing the doors.
Feeding the birds is wonderful, but leftovers dropping to the floor can kill, so please place hanging feeders over the top of a tray or table, and sweep up any on the floor each evening.
If you are having a bonfire, move the debris to its place to burn on the day of lighting, to prevent and hedgehogs, or other wildlife, that may have “moved in” beforehand, being burned alive.
Ponds are fantastic for wildlife, but you need to have a gentle slope or shallow steps into the pond to prevent hedgehogs drowning.
Try to keep an area of garden wild. Plant for attracting pollinators, insects, Beetles etc., to keep the food chain active. Have a pile of logs/twigs/garden debris and keep the leaves that fall… they have next years insect world laid on them. Hedgehogs use leaves to nest and will nest in a leaf pile too. Fence it off with chicken wire from your dogs so hedgehogs can travel without attacks.
To avoid injury to Hedgehogs (and your dog) keep your dog on a long lead between dusk and dawn, and after 6pm in summer months when Hedgehogs are foraging.
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