Hedgehogs in front garden

[Claus84]

Hi, I was hoping for some advice on feeding the local hedgehogs.

I live on a relatively new estate and like most new estates access and connectivity between gardens is awful so it had never occurred to that hedgehogs would be foraging around. Until three nights ago that is, when I opened the front door at midnight as was greeted by the biggest hedgehog I have ever seen on the front step! This now explains what has been leaving the strange poo under my bird feeders for the month or so!
Since then I’ve been leaving out a bowl of water and a handful of sunflower seeds, peanuts and calci worms in the front garden and every night around midnight a hog turns up to eat them. I’ve seen at least 2 different individuals so far.

I’m planning to set up a feeding station for them so I can also feed cat-food without the many local cats stealing it first. Problem is my front garden is tiny and pretty open to the pavement and road. I’m wondering if I should be concerned about continuing to attract them within such close proximity to the road?

I guess they have likely been foraging up the street for a while and must be fairly street-savvy. The road is pretty quiet with only the occasional neighbour coming and going late at night as its not a through road.

Thanks in advance!

Nick

[5sandown]

I live on an older suburban street and we have had hogs for many years. We’ve connected a lot of the gardens but, even before thIs, the hogs were coming and going, mostly using side entrances. They can also squeeze under the smallest gap in a fence and can dig as well. I feed dry hedgehog biscuits, although meaty, not fish, cat biscuits would also do and lots of water in this dry spell. To keep the cats away I feed in two secure feeding stations, a purpose built wicker igloo and an upside down plastic storage box with a 4 inch by 4 inch hole cut out and a brick on top to stop other animals moving it. Good luck!

[millie]

hi nick,
I think that it would be fine to keep attracting hedgehogs as they would probably still go into your garden to look for insects so you are really doing them a favour. A hedgehog feeding station sounds great but you could also get a hedgehog house as well as they would have the choice to sleep in your garden. obviously you can’t guarantee they will but its worth a try. hope I could help, if you have any more questions just ask !

Rosie

[Nic]

Hi Nick

If you’re worried about the roads, the ideal thing is to try to encourage anyone you can in the area to have hog holes in their fences/walls and create a hog highway. That way the hogs have more available habitat without having to go on the roads.

Sadly, though, roads are a perennial problem for hogs which it is hard to avoid, but if the hogs have been visiting your garden anyway eating the remains of bird food it’s probably a good idea to offer them cat/dog/hog food or cat/kitten biscuits. Most bird food is not too good for hogs – including sunflower hearts and peanuts. So you will be doing them a favour offering them some better supplementary food than they are finding under the bird feeders.

There’s some information about feeding in this link, together with a couple of ideas for cat deterring feeding stations. https://www.hedgehogstreet.org/help-hedgehogs/feed-hedgehogs/

Good luck. Hope all goes well.

[Claus84]

Thanks for the responses. I’m planning to make a double-ended feeder and place it under the hedge on the garden side. There isn’t much foliage low down on the hedge so i’m also planning to add a small picket fence along the road side against which I can place a log pile and allow leaves to build up to attract more insects.

My back garden isn’t particularly hedgehog friendly consisting of a patio, lawn with slate border and potted plants and there are a couple of steps to the lawn from the gate. I am considering cutting a hole in the gate and adding a ramp or two up to the lawn. I can also try and plant the border to make it more hedgehog friendly.
I will speak to the neighbours too but as things stand, without their involvement there would only be the one way in and out at my gate, would this be an issue?

Thanks

Nick

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