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Top 5 tips for helping hedgehogs

Posted: Jul 04 2019

Hedgehogs have been having a hard time recently with current estimates suggesting that numbers have declined by as much as a third across the UK in just the last 10 years. The cause of the decline seems due to a mix of factors with different causes impacting on rural and urban populations.

Gardens are becoming increasingly important for hedgehogs. Here's our top five tips for helping them out and encouraging hedgehogs in your garden:

  1. Link up your garden:

Current research suggests that one of the reasons hedgehogs have been declining is because fences are becoming harder for hedgehogs to pass through, reducing the area of land available to them. Each night hedgehogs can travel up to a mile in their search for enough food and a mate. A 13cm x 13cm hole in your wall or fence will allow hedgehogs to move through and connect your garden with the surrounding area. Our Eco Hedgehog Hole Plate fits around the hole you’ve made to ensure its not blocked accidentally and leaves it looking neat and tidy.

  1. Let a corner of your garden go wild.

Sow some wildflowers, don’t cut back the plants and provide a quiet corner of the garden. Hedgehogs will have somewhere to hide and feel safe and also benefit from the extra insects that this will encourage. It’ll not just be hedgehogs that benefit, you'll also be encouraging lots of other wildlife such as bees, moths and butterflies.

  1. Provide a hedgehog home

One of the ways you can give any hedgehogs in your garden a helping hand is by providing somewhere they can hibernate and raise a family. This can either be by creating a natural feature such as a compost heap or log pile or providing an artificial hedgehog house (or hedgehog hibernation home) for them to use. If you do provide a hedgehog house tuck it away in your garden so any hibernating hedgehogs are not disturbed over winter.

  1. Put out food and water

Extra food can be really beneficial for hedgehogs especially when they are raising a family and getting ready to hibernate. When it comes to feeding hedgehogs the best things to offer are Hedgehog food, meaty cat or dog food or complete cat biscuits. If you are feeding hedgehogs always provide them with a shallow dish of water and NEVER give them milk (they are lactose intolerant so this can make them ill).

  1. Check your bonfires

Piles of logs and sticks are popular with hedgehogs looking for food and somewhere to hibernate so always check your bonfire before lighting or even better build it on the day of burning so there is no chance of a hedgehog moving in.

 

We make a range of products designed to help hedgehogs, for more information please click here.

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