Why Hedgehogs Need a Hand

Hedgehogs have been part of British gardens for as long as there have been gardens, but their numbers have fallen by roughly a third since the turn of the century. The reasons are mostly small and cumulative: fewer hedgerows, more solid fencing, more paving, tidier borders and a good deal of garden poison. A single hedgehog may roam across a dozen or more gardens on a single night, so the way a whole street is managed matters far more than any one patch.

The encouraging news is that suburban gardens are now among the best hedgehog habitat we have left. Lawns full of leatherjackets, borders full of beetles, compost heaps and sheltered corners add up to excellent foraging. What a hedgehog needs from you can be summed up in three things: a way in, somewhere to sleep, and a garden that does not poison it. None of that requires much money or space.

Make a Hedgehog Highway

A hedgehog cannot climb a fence and will not squeeze under a gravel board that sits tight to the ground. If every garden on your street is sealed, each one becomes a trap with too little food to sustain a hog. The fix is a gap about 13cm square — roughly the size of a CD case — cut at the base of each fence panel, in every boundary you own.

• Cut the gap at ground level, not raised up where nothing can reach it.
• Aim for at least one gap on every side of the garden, so a hog can pass through rather than doubling back.
• If you have a brick wall, lift a brick at the base or set a short length of pipe through it.
• Talk to your neighbours. A gap on your side is useless if the next fence is solid; a coordinated street becomes a genuine highway.
• Keep the gap clear of leaves and debris, and check it before strimming or mowing nearby.

Give Them Somewhere to Sleep

Hedgehogs do not use one permanent home. They build nests through the spring and summer and need a dry, sheltered, undisturbed place to hibernate from around November to March. The easiest way to provide one is to stop tidying.

• Leave a corner of the garden wild, with long grass and a few native shrubs such as hawthorn, hazel or blackthorn.
• Keep a leaf pile in a quiet, shaded spot. Rake leaves into it rather than bagging them, and leave it alone all winter.
• A log stack with gaps at the base makes a good daytime resting place.
• A compost heap is a hog magnet, but take care when turning it — fork gently and check before you dig in.
• If you buy or build a hedgehog house, site it in shade, facing away from the prevailing wind, with the entrance tunnel pointing towards a hedge or fence line. Line it with dry leaves.

Once a hog is settled in a nest, leave it be. Disturbing a hibernating animal uses up its fat reserves and can kill it.

Water, Food and What to Avoid

A shallow dish of water is one of the kindest things you can put out, and it matters most in dry summer spells when natural water is scarce. Use a dish only two or three centimetres deep, stand it at ground level in shade, and refresh it daily. Never put out milk — hedgehogs are lactose intolerant and it causes diarrhoea — and never bread, which fills them up without feeding them.

If you want to feed, use meaty wet cat or kitten food in jelly or gravy (chicken or turkey rather than fish), or proper hedgehog biscuits. Mealworms should be an occasional treat only; a diet based on them can cause serious bone problems. Put food out at dusk and clear anything left by morning, which keeps rats and cats from becoming regulars. In late autumn, a small hog still visiting a feeding station may need help to reach hibernation weight, so keep feeding until the first hard frost.

Skip the Slug Pellets

Slug pellets are one of the worst things a hedgehog can encounter. Metaldehyde is no longer approved for outdoor use in the UK, but any pellet that kills a slug can still harm the hedgehog or bird that eats it, and pellets are also taken directly. Ferric phosphate is often described as safer, yet a hedgehog eating poisoned slugs is still taking on the chemical.

There are better answers. Hand-pick slugs on a damp evening after rain, when they are easiest to find. Encourage the predators that do the job for you: ground beetles, centipedes, slow worms, frogs and toads all thrive where there is cover and no insecticide. A beer trap with a raised lid, a barrier of crushed eggshell or wool pellets, or simply letting a few slugs live in the wild corner will keep damage tolerable. Avoid weedkillers and lawn treatments too — a lawn with a bit of clover and moss in it is a better larder than a perfect one.

Watch Out for the Hazards

• Strimmers and mowers: check long grass and border edges before you cut.
• Bonfires: move the pile to fresh ground on the day you light it, or rebuild it entirely — hibernating hogs sleep inside them.
• Netting: replace with solid fencing, or keep it taut and at least 30cm off the ground.
• Ponds: add a gentle ramp or a sloped stone at one edge so a hog that falls in can climb out.
• Drains, steep-sided holes and patio drops: cover or fence them. Hedgehogs can fall but cannot climb.

Leave a healthy hedgehog alone. Only intervene if it is out in daylight, wobbling, injured, or clearly small in late autumn — those animals need a wildlife rescue, not a bowl of cat food.

Getting Started

Begin with the three simplest jobs: cut a gap in each fence, put out a shallow dish of water, and stop using pellets. Then add a leaf pile in autumn and a hedgehog house in a quiet corner. After that, be patient — hedgehogs are nocturnal and slow to find new ground. A cheap trail camera, or a quiet torch patrol on a warm, damp evening, is the best way to learn whether your garden has already been added to a local route.