Encouraging Hedgehogs into Your Garden with Safe Habitats

Why Hedgehogs Need a Helping Hand

Hedgehog numbers across Britain have fallen dramatically in recent decades. The reasons are familiar: fewer hedgerows, more roads, tidier gardens and a landscape chopped into small, isolated patches. A hedgehog can roam a mile or more in a single night, and a solid fence with a concrete gravel board at the bottom is as good as a brick wall to a creature that only stands about 25cm tall.

That is the encouraging part. Almost everything a hedgehog needs from a garden is easy to provide, costs very little, and tends to make the garden better for everything else too — birds, frogs, beetles and the soil itself. You do not need a large plot or a rural postcode. A modest suburban back garden, connected to a few neighbours' gardens, can become a genuinely useful stretch of habitat.

Join Your Garden to Your Neighbours'

The single most valuable thing you can do is cut a gap in your boundary. A hole roughly 13cm square — about the size of a CD case — at the base of a fence or wall is enough for a hedgehog to pass through comfortably, but too small for most dogs and too low for a fox to bother with. Make one in each boundary, and if you can align them with your neighbours' gaps, you create what wildlife groups call a hedgehog highway.

A few practical points:

• Cut the gap at ground level, not raised up, and keep it clear of soil and debris.
• If you have a new fence going in, ask the installer to leave a gap before the gravel board is fitted — it is far easier than cutting later.
• Check under gates and along the bottom of hedges for existing routes and leave them open.
• Talk to your neighbours. One garden on its own is a dead end; four gardens in a row become a genuine territory.

Leave a Wild Corner

Hedgehogs need somewhere to sleep during the day and somewhere to hibernate through the winter, and both are usually found in the scruffy parts of a garden. A pile of logs, a heap of autumn leaves, a patch of long grass, a bramble tangle or the space beneath a shed will all be used. Resist the urge to tidy these in autumn — a hedgehog may already be curled up inside.

If you would like something more deliberate, a wooden hedgehog house with a short tunnel entrance works well. Site it in a quiet, dry spot, facing south or south-east so it catches some warmth, and tuck a handful of dry leaves inside to get it started. Then leave it alone. A nesting box that is checked and cleaned regularly will be abandoned.

Planting helps too. Native shrubs such as hawthorn, hazel, blackthorn and honeysuckle provide cover and attract the insects hedgehogs eat. Most importantly, avoid strimming or mowing long grass between May and July, when hoglets are being raised. Walk the area first, or leave the strimmer in the shed until late summer.

Food and Water

Hedgehogs are nocturnal insectivores. Their natural diet is beetles, caterpillars, earthworms and the occasional slug — they are not the slug-eating machines some gardening books claim, though they will take them. You can supplement this, and in late summer and autumn it genuinely helps.

• Water: a shallow dish, no deeper than about 5cm, with a few stones or a gentle ramp so anything that falls in can climb out. Check it daily in hot weather.
• Food: meaty cat or dog food — chicken, turkey, beef or lamb in jelly, not fish, not gravy. Proprietary hedgehog food is fine too.
• Never give milk or bread. Hedgehogs are lactose intolerant and both cause serious digestive problems.
• Mealworms are a treat, not a staple. Fed in quantity they unbalance the diet and can cause bone problems.
• Put food out after dusk, in a shallow dish, and clear leftovers in the morning so you do not attract rats.

Hazards That Do Real Harm

Some common garden practices are quietly lethal, and avoiding them is as important as providing habitat.

• Slug pellets. Metaldehyde products are no longer approved for outdoor garden use in the UK, but any pellet that kills slugs can poison a hedgehog that eats them. Use nematodes, beer traps sunk into the soil, copper tape or a dusk hand-pick instead.
• Bonfires. A heap of wood is a perfect nest site. Build the pile on the day you intend to burn it, or lift and move it to a fresh spot first, checking underneath with a torch and listening for rustling.
• Netting and wire. Keep fruit netting taut and at least 30cm above the ground. Hedgehogs get tangled and badly cut, often fatally.
• Ponds and drains. Provide a sloping edge or a plank ramp so a hedgehog that falls in can climb out. Cover open drains with a grate.
• Strimmers and forks. Check long grass, leaf piles and compost heaps before you cut or turn them.
• Litter. Elastic bands, plastic rings and small pots all trap snouts and legs. Bin them securely.

Autumn Hoglets and Winter Care

Hoglets born in late summer sometimes run out of time. To hibernate safely, a hedgehog generally needs to weigh around 450–600g by November. If you see a small hedgehog out in daylight in autumn, it is not a good sign — it is likely underweight, ill or both. Keep supplementary food and water available and contact a local wildlife rescue for advice.

From around November, hedgehogs settle into hibernation, often in a leaf pile, compost heap or under a shed. Disturbing one mid-winter uses up precious reserves, so leave any nest well alone until spring. Come March or April, when nights warm up, they will emerge hungry and thirsty — so keep that shallow dish topped up, keep the gaps in your fences clear, and let the wild corner stay wild.