Why would you want to attract hedgehogs? And what should you know about their lives?
The hedgehog is not harmful. On the contrary!
You may have spotted him at dusk rustling through the dry leaves under the bushes, or you may have found only the typical black piles on the lawn in the morning. A hedgehog in the garden is something like an honorable mention for every gardener. Although some are unsettled by its presence, it represents that your garden is still “alive” and healthy.
In the Czech Republic, you can come across two species, i.e. western and eastern hedgehogs. To the layman they look almost the same, they differ mainly in the color of the belly and the direction in which their spines grow, but in one thing they are the same. They are the best helpers you could ask for. Don’t worry about the animals in the garden. Not all are harmful.
How to attract a hedgehog? The author of the following post from the Green Home YouTube channel will advise you.
Why want a hedgehog as a neighbor?
Hedgehog is not just a cute figure from children’s books, he is above all a tireless policeman. While you are sleeping, he is holding a feast in the garden, where the main courses are slugs, snails, caterpillars and all sorts of insects that otherwise destroy our crops. It is essentially a natural and completely ecological agent at your service with a license to kill. In a single night, it can dispose of up to two hundred grams of pests.
You don’t have to build palaces for your hedgehog to stay with you. Just a little “mess” and common sense. .
- Let him pass: A hedgehog can walk several kilometers a night. If you have a garden surrounded by a concrete plinth or mesh down to the ground, it has no chance of reaching you. A small hole in the fence about the size of a CD is enough.
- Pile of leaves or wood: Leave a pile of branches and dry leaves in a corner of the garden. For hedgehogs, it is the best hotel for sleeping and wintering.
- Beware of chemicals and machines: Blue slug pellets are a death sentence for hedgehogs. Likewise, be careful when mowing tall grass with a string mower. The hedgehog doesn’t run away, he just curls up in a ball in danger, which doesn’t protect him from the mower’s knife.
“Have you ever noticed in gardening shows how the British create conditions for animals in their gardens? While we are always afraid that they will break into us, the English try to let life in where before there were only fences,” says garden architect Hana Bedáňová.
When to help hedgehogs?
If you want to improve him, give him a shallow bowl of clean water. That’s the most important thing he needs. For food, you can offer him quality cat pellets or a meat pouch (ideally with a high meat content and without grains).
But never give him milk. Hedgehogs cannot digest lactose and after milk they get severe diarrhea, which can even lead to the death of the animal. Hedgehogs do not need to be fed during the year, unless they require human help.
Most of the time they can handle themselves, but there are situations when human intervention is necessary. provide when:
- You will meet a hedgehog during the day: A hedgehog is a nocturnal animal. If he’s staggering around in the sun, he’s probably sick, injured, or dehydrated.
- He is visibly injured: If he’s bleeding, dragging his leg behind him, or has fly eggs visible in his spines.
- It’s a “winter weasel”: If you meet a baby in November that weighs less than 500 grams, it probably does not have enough reserves to survive the winter.
In such cases, do not rescue the hedgehog “on your own” in a shoebox, but call the nearest wildlife rescue station or search for information on the web.
“The best-known initiative in Britain is the Hedgehog Street programme,” explains the landscape architect. “Its goal is to help people make their gardens a safe haven for hedgehogs. People can become so-called Hedgehog Champions, make their garden more hedgehog-friendly and share sightings of these animals on a common map.”
Having a hedgehog in your garden is simply a joy, and if you go out of your way to accommodate him, he will repay you by removing armies of voracious slugs from your garden.
