Encouraging hedgehogs into your garden safely

Why hedgehogs need a helping hand

Few garden visitors are as welcome as the hedgehog. A single one can clear a surprising number of slugs, snails, beetles and caterpillars in a night's foraging, and it asks for very little in return: a little cover, a safe route between gardens, and somewhere undisturbed to sleep.

Those three things are harder to find than they once were. Estimates suggest Britain's hedgehog population has fallen sharply since the 1950s, from many millions to well under a million, thanks to tidier gardens, solid fences, busier roads and the loss of hedgerows. The encouraging news is that one garden can genuinely help — and most of the changes take an afternoon rather than a weekend.

Cut a hedgehog highway through your fence

Hedgehogs are wanderers. An adult may travel well over a mile in a single night and needs to cross several gardens to find enough food, so a solid fence turns a street into a series of dead ends.

The fix is a gap roughly 13cm square — about the size of a CD case — at ground level in every boundary you can manage. Cut a notch from a fence panel, lift a gravel board, or remove a brick from the base of a wall. A short tunnel made from two paving slabs or a length of pipe keeps it neat and stops pets squeezing through.

• Choose a quiet corner rather than a spot beside a busy gate.
• Talk to neighbours; a run of connected gardens is far more valuable than one isolated hole.
• Keep the gap clear of pots, bins and long grass.

Give them somewhere to sleep

Hedgehogs build nests throughout the year — for daytime resting, for breeding and for winter hibernation — and they will often make their own if you leave the right materials lying about. A pile of leaves in a quiet corner, a stack of logs or prunings with the bottom layer slightly raised, a compost heap turned only in spring, or a strip of longer grass along a boundary will all do nicely.

A purpose-built hedgehog house is a good addition to a neat garden. Choose untreated wood with a tunnel entrance, which deters cats and foxes, and site it in a shaded, quiet spot with the entrance facing south or south-east, away from the prevailing wind. Raise it slightly on a couple of bricks, cover the roof with leaves or bark, and then leave it alone: disturbance between November and March can wake a hibernating hedgehog and cost it precious energy.

Food and water: what to offer, and what to avoid

The most useful thing you can put out is water. A shallow dish, no more than a couple of centimetres deep, with a few stones for grip, gives hedgehogs a safe drink during hot spells and dry weeks. Refresh it daily and keep it close to the ground.

Supplementary food helps too, particularly in late autumn when young hedgehogs are racing to build up fat. Offer meaty cat or dog food in jelly — chicken, turkey or beef — along with cat or kitten biscuits, or a purpose-made hedgehog food.

Do avoid the old-fashioned favourites. Never put out milk: hedgehogs are lactose intolerant and it causes diarrhoea and dehydration. Bread fills them up without feeding them, and fish-flavoured food is best left alone. Put food out at dusk in small amounts and clear leftovers by morning so you don't attract rats.

The everyday hazards hiding in your garden

Some of the most ordinary garden habits are also the most dangerous.

• Slug pellets. Leave them on the shelf. A garden stripped of slugs and beetles has nothing for a hedgehog to eat, and poisoned prey does them no good either. Try barriers, nematodes or a torchlit patrol at dusk instead.
• Strimmers and mowers. Check long grass and the base of hedges before you cut — strimmer injuries are one of the most common reasons hedgehogs end up in rescue.
• Bonfires. A warm, dry pile of wood is an irresistible nest site. Build the fire on the day you light it, or move the pile and check it with a torch first, especially around 5 November.
• Ponds. Hedgehogs swim well but cannot climb steep sides, so add a gently sloping edge, a ramp or a pile of stones at one corner.
• Netting. Keep fruit cage and pea netting at least 30cm above ground so hedgehogs can pass underneath without tangling.

A gentle rhythm through the seasons

In spring, resist the urge to clear every corner, and delay the first cut of long grass until the risk of disturbing a nest has passed. Through summer, keep that water dish topped up and walk the garden before mowing. In autumn, let the leaves gather, and watch for small hedgehogs active in daylight — a youngster under about 600g in November is unlikely to survive hibernation unaided, so contact your local hedgehog rescue rather than trying to keep it yourself. In winter, leave hibernation spots well alone and enjoy the thought of something prickly sleeping soundly under the log pile.

Small changes, made across enough gardens, add up to a landscape a hedgehog can live in. A gap in a fence, a dish of water and a scruffy corner or two may not sound like much — but to a hedgehog, it is the difference between a dead end and a home.