There can be very few animals that have no enemies...foxes, deer, badgers, frogs, even garden birds have their critics, but I have never heard of anyone not liking hedgehogs and they are, in truth, quite delightful creatures with few, if any, bad habits, so why have they recently suffered such a catastrophic decline?

 

Habitat loss is thought to be the single biggest factor, with the British hedgehog population plummeting from around 30 million in the 1950’s to a scant one million today. This loss of habitat together with the increased use of pesticides in agriculture and in gardens and the proliferation of road traffic have decimated the population of these animals.  If you encounter a hedgehog in your garden, you may count yourself very lucky.

  

Hedgehogs are solitary animals, usually only keeping company while looking for a mate.  Relationships are not monogamous and females will mate with several males while they are receptive, and will give birth between May and September each year. The female raises her litter of 2 to 6 hoglets on her own. They are born spineless and blind, but after only a few hours the first spines will begin to emerge on the little naked backs of the hoglets.   The babies will leave the nest to live independently when they are only 5 to 6 weeks old.  September litters often struggle to eat enough in the brief period before winter sets in to gain the necessary weight that will allow them to make it through the cold weather .

 

Hedgehogs are nocturnal mammals who hibernate during the winter months in order to conserve energy while their food stocks are low. Although they have better night vision than we do they primarily use their hearing and sense of smell to find food and to search out a mate.  Hogs often have home ranges stretching to 50 hectares and can travel 1 to 2 km per night so it is easy to see that one garden, even a large one, will not support a hedgehog.  

 

Hedgehogs do eat slugs and snails but they prefer caterpillars, worms and other small creatures.  In fact, slugs and snails can carry a parasite that can be lethal to hogs, so providing a supplementary meal on a regular basis is a great boost to your local hedgehog population while at the same time encouraging the hogs in to your garden to hoover up all sorts of other pests.

  

Hedgehog safety

All ponds and water troughs, drains and grids should be well supplied with escape routes in the form of sloping banks or planks of wood that will allow hedgehogs - and other creatures -to climb out easily if they fall in by accident.

 

Do not feed hedgehogs bread soaked in milk;  Even though they love it they cannot digest it and it makes them ill. Instead feed them good quality moist or dry catfood (not fish flavoured) or unsweetened muesli and place the bowls in a safe place where they cannot be bothered by cats, dogs or visiting foxes or badgers...a large transparent box, well pegged down and with a doorway cut in one end and the bowls placed well out of reach at the other end will allow hogs to enter while keeping cats, badgers and foxes out.

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 The use of nylon netting should always be avoided in the garden as it is lethal both when it is in use and when it is disposed of. Dispose of it safely by melting it with boiling water in order to avoid it being a hazard in another environment.

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Bonfires, large or small, should be built on the day they will be lit and checked thoroughly before being set alight .

Compost heaps are heavenly places for all sorts of creatures from slow worms to earth worms, and hedgehogs will burrow in to search out a tasty snack...tease the heap apart before diving in with the sharp tines of your garden fork!

Dispose of rubbish carefully.  Plastic collars that haven’t been chopped into pieces, tin cans with their lids still attached and  plastic bags can all be lethal to hogs.

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Discard rubbish carefully and keep bags with their tempting smells far out of reach of hogs to avoid them being trapped inside. The plastic collars which hold drinks cans together, plastic bags and tins can all pose a potential threat to foraging hedgehogs. 

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Whenever mowing or strimming any patch of long grass or brushwood, go through the area first to shoo away any animals that are holed up in the area...the damage that can be wrought by mowers and strimmers just doesnt bear thinking about.

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Close shed doors whenever they aren’t in use to avoid hogs and any other creature from being trapped inside.

Leave – or construct -  gaps beneath walls, hedges and fences to allow hogs to travel between gardens so that they can forage and find a mate.  

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Do not sprinkle slug pellets around the garden...if you really must use them place them in traps that are inaccessible to foraging hogs and dispose of the mollusc corpses promptly. Remember that even pellets that are listed as safe for wildlife will affect ground dwelling and feeding insects, and these are just what hedgehogs come into your garden to find!

 

• It is usual for hogs to briefly wake from their winter slumbers for a snack on regular occasions. You can help hedgehogs make it through the winter by maintaining a well stocked feeding station and by offering several weatherproof shelters around the garden in which a hedgehog may choose to hibernate.  

 

• If you find a hedgehog that is obviously injured or unwell take it to your local wildlife rescue centre, hedgehog hospital or to your vet.  However a hog that just appears small or confused may be perfectly alright - hundreds of perfectly healthy hedgehogs are unnecessarily ‘rescued’ every year by well-meaning animal lovers.  Always check it out though; a hog who is out in daylight hours may need little more than a bowl of water and cat food, or it may require the prompt expert attention.