Hedgehogs are a powerful form of pest control. A single hedgehog can keep an average garden free of pests by eating up to 200 grams of insects each night. It is common throughout the United Kingdom to see people attempting to lure hedgehogs into their gardens with treats and hedgehog-sized holes in their fences.
All hedgehogs are primarily nocturnal, although different species can be more or less likely to come out in the daytime. The hedgehog sleeps for a large portion of the daytime either under cover of bush, grass, rock or in a hole in the ground. Again, different species can have slightly different habits, however, in general, hedgehogs dig out dens for shelter. All wild hedgehogs can hibernate, although not all do. Hibernation depends on temperature, species and abundance of food.
Hedgehogs hibernate alone from November to April under a supporting structure such as a shed, wood piles, brambles, open compost bags or bonfire heaps. They may, however, emerge to forage at night during warm winter spells. In summer, hedgehogs shelter during the day in temporary nests of leaves, moss and grass. By autumn, hedgehogs have dramatically put on weight in preparation for their hibernation. They hibernate until the following March or April, during which time their body temperature and heart beat fall dramatically, from 190 to about 20 beats per minute. Most hedgehog deaths occur during this hibernation period.
How to keep hedgehogs away
The most important advice that we can offer is that a very tidy garden is not a friendly place for a hedgehog. If you leave a small corner behind or under bushes where leaves and other garden debris accumulates, a log pile with space inside hedgehogs will be attracted and inclined to stay. If this area is literally a sheltered corner in the fencing it may also serve as a good place of a hibernacula, a nesting place for the winter, so you must be really careful when taking care of your garden.
You can also make sure that you don’t have any slugs, snails, beetles, worms or caterpillars in your garden. If this has already been taken care of and you still see traces of hedgehogs in your garden, check to see if there are any food left-overs which fell from the trash.
If you want to be proactive in keeping away hedgehogs, you have to be aware of what their diet is and then make sure none of these things can be found in your garden/area surrounding your home. Hedgehogs are not exclusively insectivores but are almost omnivorous. Hedgehogs feed on insects, snails, frogs and toads, caterpillars, worms, beetles, snakes, bird eggs, carrion, mushrooms, grass roots, berries, melons and watermelons. Its favourite food is slugs and worms, they may eat 40 or more slugs a night.
Hazards for hedgehogs
- Pesticides – This includes slug pellets; whilst hedgehogs will not eat the pellet they will be poisoned by eating slugs that have.
- Fires – Piled up leaves and cuttings make attractive homes for hedgehogs and therefore burning these piles poses a problem for the hedgehogs.
- Mowing and trimming – Getting into those odd corners with the trimmer can do more than cut the grass. Long grass in protected places is a favourite place for hedgehog families to spend the daylight hours.
- Netting – Nets for fruit, tennis, football etc. can trap hedgehogs very easily.
- Household rubbish – Cans, yoghurt containers, plastic cups etc and the plastic rings from packs of cans can get trapped over hedgehogs’ heads. Part of their success in evolution is that they are opportunists and omnivorous eaters. Their inquisitiveness means they will literally stick their noses into anything that might provide a meal. Open containers of oil, paint or other hazardous substances can also cause hedgehogs
You can also set a trap if you see evidence of hedgehogs in your garden. To be safely set, traps need to be placed inside a tunnel-like trap box to ensure that birds, children or pets cannot get access to it. More information on setting traps can be found in our article How to Get Rid of Hedgehogs.
My front garden consists of fake grass and tiles NOTHING ELSE. I have a wooden open type fence and gate that is used to get through, I fastened poor quality chicken wire around the fence but it was getting through the little gate, I strung string horizontally on the the upright wooden pieces of the wooden gate, it works but it persistently poos just outside the gate, it is not nice when the postman or visitors step into it, there is not much of it but I am sick to death of it. I comes from the garden at the other side of my driveway, they do not have FENCE ROUND THEIR GARDEN, i KNOW IT COMES FROM THERE MY OPPOSIT NEIGHBOUR SAW it WALKING TOWARDS MY GATE.
It is not advisable to apply control treatments against hedgehogs.
In order to get rid of a hedgehog inside the property, you can use a trap. Make sure you remove any other food sources the hedgehog could eat, such as pet food. After catching it, make sure to release it somewhere safe.