[Closed] Hedgehog in my garden

So do I move it?

Unless it's clearly sick or injured then no.

just leave some food out for it and let it mooch about to its hearts content.

Yes. Make sure it's suitable food though. Maybe cut some holes in your fence to allow it access to your neighbours gardens.

Alternatively it won't feed a family of four but they make a great tandoori

thanks, thought that might be the best thing to do. Will leave food out and see about cutting holes in the fences - 2 of the three have concrete gravel boards so will need a big hole saw...which means I probably need a new drill as my 20 year old pathetic drill probably wouldn't be man enough. What a shame!

Alternatively it won’t feed a family of four but they make a great tandoori

Would bring a new definition to ring sting!

I'm disappointed that there hasn't been a "Rat in ma kitchen" retort yet.

Upturned plastic box with a hole for a door some straw or dry leaves would be good. Spikes hedgehog food is popular with ours. Don't feed them mealworms or peanuts even though they love them!

the little blighter seems to have wandered off. No sign of him now. I'll leave some food out in the area I found him yesterday just in case he's still mooching about.

We had mum and 2 hoglets in our small garden for a couple of weeks in the summer. They will eat dog food ( I used dried soaked in water) and meal worms. It is an offence under the wildlife act to move or disturb them unless underweight/ill. I cut a hole in the garden fence mesh to allow them in and out. However, if it got in there must be a way out. They are a great excuse for keeping a messy garden with lots of leaves and slugs for them to eat.

2 of the three have concrete gravel boards so will need a big hole saw…which means I probably need a new drill as my 20 year old pathetic drill probably wouldn’t be man enough.

What’s the ground like below the gravel boards? If it’s soil or similar, just get a trowel and dig hollows underneath, the ‘hogs will happily squeeze underneath, that’s what they were doing in my garden.
Food-wise, they can be surprisingly picky, when we first noticed them coming into the garden regularly, they were going after the bits of suet pellets the birds dropped, so I started putting saucers underneath a large paving slab on bricks, and putting suet pellets and mealworms, which the birds were dropping as well, until I read they could be a problem, so I got some kitty kibbles and cat food. They liked the kibbles, but weren’t sure about the cat food, then one day when I went to check the saucers, I found the cat food untouched, except for a large fresh poo right in the middle!
I then tried Wilco’s budget dog meat in chunks with jelly - they like the meat, but left the jelly. Then I tried the meat in gravy, and they literally licked the plate clean.
The kibbles, I discovered, only get eaten if they’re the ones with creamy centres, the pocket ones, the crunchy ones get left.
They still wander round under the tree with the feeders after the suet pellets, and bits of mealworms, but I can’t stop that, the starlings drop bits everywhere.
I’ve set out several places for them to sleep, upturned plastic flower tubs with a hole cut in one side, but there’s only ever one sleeping in the garden at a time, territorial, I guess, but we’ve had as many as six in the garden in the evening, two or three hoglets, an olde, possibly the previous years young, and two, possibly three adults.
I’ve been sat outside at night in the summer, with a hedgehog underneath my chair, sniffing my ankles, and one night one was sniffing around my feet and started tugging at my sock with its teeth! My g/f had one climb onto her slipper while she was sat having a ciggy one night.
Saucers of water are vital in warm weather, I’ve watched them feeding, then go to a saucer of water and drink for at least a couple of minutes without stopping, so that’s crucial, I put out three saucers, well, they’re the plastic things you put plant pots into indoors to stop water running everywhere; they’re nice and flat on the bottom, and hold a fair amount of water, I’ve watched the ‘hogs stand on the edge and tip it up when the level gets low, to finish it off.
Currently I’m putting out two plates of kibbles and a plate of dog meat, and it’s cleaned up by next morning, I think there’s two of them around, probably a Male and female.
The amount of noise they make gives the game away.
This is one of the little ones, taking a drink, I’ve constructed a proper eating place for them now, from three plastic storage boxes, to keep the local cats from plundering the ‘hogs meals.

Why don't hedgehogs just calm down & share the hedge with all the other hedge users !

Depends whether you want him to keep coming back 🙂 if you want a garden hedgehog, feed him - wet cat food is good, but will also attract cats.

We have loads of HHs visiting the garden, I also rehabilitate and release injured ones for a local charity.

For feeders we use inverted plastic boxes with a hole cut in them, then put some bricks a few inches in front of the hole to keep cats and foxes out.

Food wise, kitten kibbles, sunflower hearts go down really well. Wet dog food (avoid fish and jelly) are also food, but go off really quickly eg maggots infested in a day in summer. HHs can be really fussy with food, so I normally put all three out everyday.

Right now they're mainly hibernating although they do wake up and move about a bit, we had a feeding station emptied last week.

eg [url= https://live.staticflickr.com/1764/41173806180_86e3f4e8c9_z.jp g" target="_blank">https://live.staticflickr.com/1764/41173806180_86e3f4e8c9_z.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/25Jow71 ]Heidi meeting locals[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/brf/ ]Ben Freeman[/url], on Flickr

Food wise, kitten kibbles, sunflower hearts go down really well. Wet dog food (avoid fish and jelly) are also food, but go off really quickly eg maggots infested in a day in summer. HHs can be really fussy with food, so I normally put all three out everyday.

Right now they’re mainly hibernating although they do wake up and move about a bit, we had a feeding station emptied last week.

Pretty much mirrors our experiences with our little nocturnal visitors, as I posted above, although they don’t seem to hibernate, even when we had some snow around a year or so back.
Our feeding station gets emptied every night! This photo shows the station fairly well, there are three boxes, joined together with an hexagonal piece of roofing plastic, and there’s an extra piece stuck into the top of each opening between the boxes, because the skinnier of the neighbourhood cats could squeeze into the boxes and snaffle the food.
I can just lift the tops of all three boxes off in one go, and I put a cast iron cats-eye that I dug up from a repaired section of bridleway, nice and heavy, stops the moggies from shoving the boxes out of the way.

Thanks. can easily dig a few channels under gravel boards. The garden is on a very slight slope and the fences have been set pretty straight so at one end they are not that deep.

Though i'd love to have hedgehogs in the garden routinely i'm not sure attracting them into the garden is a great idea. I live on the edge of a large estate, so plenty of nice open fields and countryside nearby (obviously where they're coming from) and probably better off staying there rather than venturing onto the estate. I'll keep my eyes peeled and see if I can suss out if I get regular visits or not.

Though i’d love to have hedgehogs in the garden routinely i’m not sure attracting them into the garden is a great idea. I live on the edge of a large estate, so plenty of nice open fields and countryside nearby (obviously where they’re coming from) and probably better off staying there rather than venturing onto the estate.

Feeding them would be a great help. HHs are in decline due to loss of habitat, they only really thrive on the boundaries ie hedgerows, they don't like open fields nor dense woods. We're obliterating their natural environment and anything you can do to help them is a good thing.

I've cut holes in all my neighbours fences (with their permission) to maximise roaming as they travel up to a mile each night looking for bugs and grubs under shrubs etc.

Coincidently SWCC dropped off our latest HH this afternoon, William, weighting in at a whopping 1200g! He'll spend a few days in the orientation pen, then get set free to live where he wants.

These photos are very dark, it was twilight, and the ‘hog was underneath my chair while I was trying to take photos, plus the phone I had then isn’t a patch on the one I have now for night shots, but you can just make out that it’s got its foot on the back of my shoe, and it’s actually got my sock in its teeth and is tugging at it, the second photo it had moved to my other foot!

Nuke it from orbit--it's the only way to be sure

Went down to the garage earlier to refit my rear wheel, after puncture fix indoors and a hedgehog casually walked over my shoe and into the messy back corner!

It could explain the mass of snail shells we found in there a few years ago, which I guessed was rats.

However, I'm concerned now that maybe it randomly popped in rather than living in there, maybe drawn in by the smell of dry fish food I spilled earlier on. There is a small gap/hole where the old wooden doors meet up, but not sure hedgehog would fit through.

Wondering about maybe bringing bike indoors tomorrow and leaving the garage door slightly ajar for the night, so it has a chance to get out tomorrow night.

A couple of people have mentioned mealworms and while they lap them up they really aren't good for them.

https://www.countryliving.com/uk/wildlife/countryside/news/a2733/hedgehog-food-mealworms/

They also like peanuts but they can jam onto their teeth which is also far from ideal.

When we had chickens, hedgehogs used to dangle off the suspended feeder to get to the Layers Pellets which they clearly like enough to make the effort. Also had an exhausted starving one tangled in the net of the recycling box and brought it indoors to do a bit of revival. Be warned, they smell something awful in confined spaces.

These photos are very dark, it was twilight, and the ‘hog was underneath my chair while I was trying to take photos, plus the phone I had then isn’t a patch on the one I have now for night shots, but you can just make out that it’s got its foot on the back of my shoe, and it’s actually got my sock in its teeth and is tugging at it, the second photo it had moved to my other foot!

believe it or not we had the same experience in crete last september, but in the daytime! HH on the beach at plakias, tried crawling up my leg 🙂

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Aware of the issues with mealworms, but I can’t stop the ‘hogs from eating them, as I’ve got a feeder in the tree which I fill with mealworms and the starlings go nuts for them, it’s a storm of wings when I fill it up and go back inside, twenty or thirty starlings crash into the tree squabbling over who gets to the mealworms, and they spill them all over the patio under the tree.
They do the same with the suet pellets as well, but they’re fine for the ‘hogs, they use them as a sort of hors d'oeuvre before scoffing the kibbles and wet dog food!

Might be smelly but cute as hell.

One only ever seen one live one....which I had to take to a vet and they put down unfortunately.

Crying shame if they go extinct over here.

Going back to comments made by the OP about living in or near a large estate and risks to the ‘hogs, sadly it’s just something you have to accept. Where I live there’s an estate that my garden backs onto, in fact when it was built, on a former estate of prefab houses, half of my garden was taken to build a block of two-storey flats, with grass between my fence and the flats, so the ‘hogs can happily wander around there, and into either of my next door neighbours; however, there’s a busy road out front, and a very busy road just a few yards up the road, and the ‘hogs can and will wander for some considerable distance. There have been three or four killed within a few yards of my house in the last year or so, including a hoglet just outside, and two on the edge of a large green just down the road, but there’s nothing that can be done, sadly - car drivers don’t seem to pay any attention to them at all. I’ve considered getting some signs made up to warn drivers, but I’m not sure anyone would really care. ☹️
This screen grab from Google Earth shows the area around my house where the ‘hogs roam, you can see the roughly ‘h’-shaped flats with the patch of grass behind the houses at the top of the road, the edge of the green on the top right, and the busy road running up the left hand side, that was formerly the A350, so it’s a real issue for creatures that can cover 2km during the night.