Hedgehogs!

[GingerKitCat]

I received my first ever hedgehog visitors this evening! Super exciting

I took part in the Homebase garden goals challenge and created a wildlife garden. My garden had been pretty wildlife-friendly up until this point but I added extra pollinator-friendly planting, a wildlife pond, lots of mini log piles and a big heap of grass cuttings and dried leaves in a secluded corner.

This seems to have done the trick! I think the pair are an adult and offspring but both are enormous! I mistook them for giant rats from the kitchen window

They were snuffling round some bread I'd thrown on the lawn earlier for the birds. Unfortunately bread isn't ideal hedgehog food. I added a few slugs (yum!) and a handful of crushed cat biscuits as per online advice. I'll make sure I don't leave bread out going forward.

I'd love to feed them wet cat or dog food (chicken or turkey flavour apparently ) but fear my greedy feline overlord would scoff it before they got a look in.

Does anyone else have resident hedgehogs?

I'm tempted to build a hedgehog house following the Gardeners World template

Oooh how exciting! Lucky you!

I'm thrilled! Used have them in the garden as a child but have never been lucky enough to have my own visiting set

I'm so jealous

Exciting! We have hog visitors too, and have 2 hedgehog houses and a feeding station (to stop cats getting at the food). Enjoy!

I went out in the dark to put a shallow dish of water down (shhh don't tell the cat I took one of his from the cupboard!). Found the pair of them furtling through the flowerbed - they are noisy! They were curled up on top of a dianthus when I took the photo

Rae did you build or buy your hog houses/ feeding station? What do you feed yours? They're so cute aren't they!

They can't digest bread! It will make them v sick. Cat food.. get some cat food for them

Adorable btw

We had ours for years; fed on cat food (don't give them fish based cat food - must be meat) & water. Bread & milk make them sick and they can die from poor diets. (Milk will give them the shits for starters).

Oops... ahem.. sorry.. I just read your post properly and panicked when I saw "bread". Apologies.. you know what you're doing

Amazing! We had one in the garden when I was a child, but they are so scarce these days

The bread has been put away fear not! No milk on the premises as I don't drink it either

Do you think I'll be okay feeding bashed up chicken flavoured cat biscuits until I sort out a feeding station? I wanted to make a proper wooden one for the sake of aesthetics but I could fashion the plastic crate version (tutorial) in the meantime I reckon!

I can't really leave a dish of wet chicken in jelly cat food (no gravy nor fishy flavours apparently) as the cat (or neighbour cat) would gobble it. Mine's on a special dry food diet and goes mad for cheap wet food!

We get them occasionally but went for a long stretch this summer without seeing one.
However yesterday morning DH says one had left his (or her) calling card: - ahem - poop.
Usually s/he patrols the edge of the borders looking for bugs and if two appear and they're in mating mood, snuffling is surprisingly noisy!

Tesco sells the hedgehog food(dry pellet type), and they are gone every night, so I think our hedgehog love it.)

I miss this. We had one/some once, as evidenced by the poo, but haven't seen a sign of them since getting dogs. We have tons of snails and slugs. I wish the hedgehogs would come back.

Mealworms are good apparently, we get them from the pound shop for some of the birds that visit.

We had a hedgehog for the first time in years last week - DH ran inside after getting home from a late shift and woke me up as he knew I wouldn't want to miss it :o

I love hedgehogs

Got a real passion for them

I hand reared a baby and released him a few weeks ago.

I was hoping he would stick around but apparently not. He soon buggered off

With food, you can buy hedgehog biscuits.

Also dry mealworms go down lovely.

For wet food, try a wooden box with a brick on top to stop cats from lifting it up. Make sure the hole in the box is big enough for the hog too.

They will soon smell that food

I've got one that visits. It was out a lot during the day a couple of months ago. I could just keep quiet and look and listen for rustling in the boarders to work out where it was. It seemed to be living under a tightly grown box bush.

Thanks guys!

I thought my excitement might've been a bit premature as I didn't see them after that first night...but they're back tonight! 😍

I still haven't sorted the food but will get some hedgehog biscuits, wet chicken cat/dog food and mealworms

They are so cute! Soubriquet your baby one sounds awesome, I hope he comes back to say hello one day!

I have a section of hedge, a 'wild' section of ivy etc (neighbour's but spills into mine) and some bushy euonymous here and there so hopefully they're finding a bit of cover!

They're creatures of habit. They tend to go the same route at the same time every night. The one at my house years ago used to walk along a wall about 9-9:30. You could get a chair and wait for it to walk past.

No resident hedgehog, but our dog can find them a mile off. When she goes out the door for a late night pee, she legs it to the nearest one almost every evening. She doesn't touch them, just snuffles and sneezes all over the in excitement. I'm sure they are less than impressed, but she must have been prickled at some poor as she definitely just makes lots of snorkeling noises and doesn't try to touch them!

We have had hedgehogs regularly for the last 7 years. When their babies are born, the babies come too. We put dried mealworms out and they drink water from our chicken drinker. They're gorgeous when they're snuffling mealworms, and when they're fighting or pushing another hedgehog down the garden after a stand-off. It's lovely watching the babies get more and more confident too.

DH tried with the wet dog food - a cat ate it. He did the upturned plastic box - the cat turned it over. He put bricks on top - the cat squeeeeezed through the hole. He gave up on the wet dog food and I took the last two tins to the dog collection box in the supermarket.

I am a re-homer for the local rescue. I usually get them at 500g and have to feed/look after them in a run in my garden until they get to 650g (which is the weight they need to be to survive the winter), then we release them.

We all love them. We need to look after them, there is a very good chance that there won't be any hedgehogs left in 40 years.

Cat biscuits are good, they love fruit cake. They will cost you a small fortune in mealworms.

Water - make sure you have got water out for them.

We found a hedgehog in our swimming pool this morning :( he is alive but he is all shaky and tired. Who know how long he's been there. We don't have any cat food and only dry dog biscuits. Given him water but no idea if he's going to make it :(

We have one every year, never had a pair. We have loads of little bunnys in the garden too which is strange considering we have cats and dogs but they don't go near them. One of the dogs always sits his toy by the hedgehog as if he's gonna play 😭. We got food from Tesco but normally just give them cat meat & water! Leave some rabbit food, Muslie & veggies out for the rabbits

He's tuckered out

whisky if he got water in his lungs he could be at risk of pneumonia
Any vet should treat wildlife for free ( I usually chuck a few £ in whatever collection box they have on the counter) so if he's not getting better maybe get him checked out