Why Hedgehogs Need Your Garden

Hedgehog numbers in Britain have fallen sharply over the past two decades, and the decline has been steepest in towns and suburbs. That sounds like bad news, but it also tells us where the opportunity lies. Gardens now cover more land than all our nature reserves put together, and a well-connected suburban street can support a surprising number of animals.

A hedgehog will happily travel a kilometre or more in a single night, stitching together gardens, allotments, churchyards and playing fields into one territory. The problem is fences. A single sealed boundary can cut off a whole neighbourhood, so the most useful thing you can do is not about food or fancy habitats — it is about access.

Cut a Gap, Build a Highway

A hedgehog needs a hole roughly 13 centimetres square to pass through comfortably. That is about the size of a CD case, and small enough that most pets and toddlers will not notice it.

• Cut a notch at the base of a fence panel, in a corner where it is least conspicuous.
• Lift a couple of gravel boards, or replace a brick at the bottom of a wall.
• If you have a gate, leave a gap of a few centimetres beneath it.
• Check the far side: a hedgehog will not use a hole that drops into a steep-sided ditch or onto a concrete slab.

Then talk to your neighbours. Two or three households agreeing to do the same thing creates a genuine corridor, and in many streets people are only too pleased to join in once someone suggests it. If your garden backs onto a park, an allotment or a railway embankment, link up with it — that is where your hedgehogs are most likely coming from.

Water, Shelter and Somewhere to Sleep

Hedgehogs are thirsty animals, especially in dry summers, and a shallow dish of fresh water is one of the simplest gifts you can offer. Site it in a quiet corner, keep it no more than a few centimetres deep, and add a few flat stones so anything that falls in can climb out. Refill it daily — a saucer of stale water is worse than none.

For shelter, aim for a wild corner: a metre or two of long grass, a pile of pruned branches, a heap of leaves left over winter. Log piles are excellent, particularly if you bury the bottom logs slightly so the stack stays damp and full of beetles. A purpose-built hedgehog house works well too, but only if you place it properly — in shade, facing away from the prevailing wind, with a short entrance tunnel and a floor to keep the damp out. Line it with dry leaves, then leave it alone. Disturbing a hibernating hedgehog in midwinter can kill it.

What to Put Out — and What to Leave Alone

If you decide to feed, keep it simple and supplementary. Hedgehogs are insectivores by nature and should be getting most of their food from your borders.

• Cat or dog food in jelly, chicken or turkey based, is a good standby. Put out a small dish at dusk and remove anything left by morning.
• Dried mealworms should be a rare treat only. Fed heavily, they are linked to serious bone problems in hedgehogs because of their poor calcium-to-phosphorus balance.
• Fresh water every night, without exception.
• Never milk, which causes diarrhoea, and never bread, fruit or salted nuts.

The most important instruction, though, is about what not to put out at all. Slug pellets are lethal to hedgehogs, whether directly or through the slugs and snails that have eaten them, and the damage does not stop at your boundary. Go out after dark with a torch and pick slugs off your hostas instead, or accept some holes in the leaves. A garden with a few nibbled plants and a hedgehog in it is a far healthier place than a pristine one without.

Gardening Without Causing Harm

Most hedgehog injuries in gardens come from ordinary jobs done at the wrong moment.

• Strimmers cause terrible injuries. Walk the long grass first, and delay cutting between May and July if you can, when hoglets are most likely to be hiding in it.
• Bonfires are irresistible to a hedgehog. Build the pile on the day you intend to burn it, or lift and move the entire heap a metre or two before lighting.
• Ponds need an escape route: a gently sloping edge, a plank, or a rope of stones up one side. Hedgehogs swim well but drown when they cannot climb out.
• Netting should be kept taut and at least 30 centimetres off the ground, so animals cannot tangle in it.
• Drains, window wells, wheelie bins and open compost bays all trap hedgehogs. Cover them, or check them every morning.

It is also worth checking with the mower and the fork before you start, and keeping dogs away from the wild corner after dark.

Reading the Signs

You may never see your hedgehogs, but you will know they are there. Look for small, dark, shiny droppings full of beetle cases, listen for loud snuffling and rustling after dusk, and check soft ground or mud for prints: five toes on the front foot, four on the back. Hibernation usually runs from November to March, and the breeding season from May to July, so those are the months to be especially careful with tools and piles of vegetation.

One last thing: a hedgehog out in daylight, particularly in winter, is usually in trouble rather than simply being tame. Weigh it if you can — anything under about 600 grams in late autumn will struggle to survive the cold — and contact a local wildlife rescue for advice. Everything else, from the gap in your fence to the saucer of water by the back door, you can do yourself this weekend.