The Hedgehog's Dilemma

by Hugh Warwick

  At the BHPS we have published a series of pamphlets that outline the best ways we can increase the chances of hedgehogs coming to our gardens and how, when they are there, we can reduce their chances of coming to an untimely end. We know that hedgehogs help to control some of the most irritating of garden pests, so let us see what we can do to return the favour.

  Bonfires – I love them. There is something quite primal (or is this just a man thing) about lighting and feeding a good fire on a Sunday afternoon. I have such distinct memories of my father coming in smelling of smoke, ruddy-cheeked and happy, for tea. But talk to any wildlife rescue centre and they will tell you horror stories of half-cooked hedgehogs being rescued. The easiest way to avoid barbecuing your spiny friend is to use a proper incinerator, or to move the pile prior to lighting, just to check that no one has taken up residence underneath.

  Netting – I remember rescuing birds that had got caught in the netting over my parents’ raspberry canes. This netting needs to be around 30 centimetres off the ground if it is to avoid horrible injury to hedgehogs. They have a tendency to get tangled and their reaction to an unexpected interruption to their travel will be to roll up, worsening the problem. The same goes for all netting – football, tennis – it can all catch and kill hedgehogs.

  Ponds – Our pond is a little like the Bank of England, fortified to prevent our children, Mati and Pip, taking involuntary swimming lessons. The mesh across the top is fine enough to stop hedgehogs getting in, but large enough for frogs to escape. But not everyone has such a formidably protected puddle in their garden. Now, hedgehogs need to drink, so they will be attracted to the welcome water. And they can swim, so if they fall in, all is not lost. But they cannot swim forever. If the pond has smooth and steep sides, the poor beast will eventually drown. So provide an escape route, a gentle ramp, plastic-coated wire, plants to provide purchase. I met a man from Southampton who was so distressed to find a dead hedgehog floating in his pond that he completely redesigned his water feature to include, as he put it, ‘a beach’.

  Bear in mind unintentional ponds such as sandpits and buckets that can get filled with rain.

  Drains – Keep drain holes covered. This stops both leaves and hedgehogs from causing blockages – remember, they don’t flush well. If there are unavoidable voids, like garage inspection pits, then they need to be checked daily, or provided with an escape route.

  Fences – These can present barriers to the free movement of hedgehogs through suburbia, so make sure that, if you want to encourage visitors, you leave space for them to come and go as they please. And think about what you protect the wood with. I remember the welts I came out in after creosoting a fence. There are now plenty of gentler preservatives on the market. Hedgehogs will often have an exploratory lick of new additions to the olfactory menu, so make sure this is not their final experience.

  Wild Patches – I would always encourage small portions of wilderness in a garden, partly to accommodate my laziness, but also because it is these patches that provide both food and shelter for hedgehogs. Piles of logs and stones can create a home for hedgehog food and, if big enough, a hedgehog. But remember, should you be tempted to rein in the florid excess, please take care if using a strimmer. These devices mutilate hedgehogs with horrifying efficiency. If you must go through long grass, cut first at 30 centimetres off the ground and then check for wildlife before cutting lower. You can supplement your mini-wilderness with some strategic planting of other wildlife-friendly flowers and herbs.

  Compost – We had a wonderful compost heap that provided rich pickings for a wide range of wildlife until the rats got too presumptuous. Now we put only garden waste there. Compost heaps are great places for hedgehogs to nest and even to rear young. They are warm and filled with hedgehog food. So please take care if you want to turn your heap. Just sticking a fork into its heart could be disastrous.

  Slug Pellets – The most common slug pellets contain metaldehyde, which is known to kill hedgehogs. There are alternative products, but see if you can find a better solution. There is great satisfaction to be had from nightly expeditions with a sharp stone, slicing open slugs near your crop. You can make this more efficient by luring the slugs with something they like even more than lettuce. Sow some marigolds as a ‘companion’ plant to keep the slimy wretches occupied or leave grapefruit skins, another great attractant. I have had good success with beer traps (using very cheap beer in a yoghurt pot, buried so it is flush with the ground), but I stopped after I killed two newts and some rather interesting-looking beetles. And remember, slug pellets don’t just kill the slugs that eat your pansies, they also kill the slugs that help generate a healthy soil by being detritivores, and they kill the slugs that form part of the hedgehog’s diet. They are also dangerous to pets, birds and children.

  Litter – Now, hopefully your garden is not covered in litter, but even small amounts can cause misery. The plastic rings around four-packs of drink are lethal. A young hedgehog getting caught in one will be unable to escape and will continue to grow until the plastic has eaten into its flesh. Other bits of plastic that can cause harm are things like yoghurt pots that may lure a hedgehog into deeper investigation, but then prevent escape as the spines prevent the hog from reversing out. There was a famous case of McDonald’s, for one of the first times in its career, backing down in the face of protest. McFlurry desserts came in a pot with an opening large enough to allow an inquisitive hedgehog to get trapped. Pictures of hedgehogs killed in this way were sent to the BHPS, which then began a quiet yet persistent campaign, resulting in the redesign of the lids around the world.

  Sheds – For some, people as well as hedgehogs, these are a place of refuge. Hedgehogs are not put off by human buildings and will use them to shelter. But if you have left your shed open for a few weeks and then decide to close it, what will come of a nest of hoglets trapped inside? Have a look around. And shift any poisons up a bit. Rescuers often get calls in June from people who have decided to dismantle a shed and found that a mother and her babies were sheltering beneath it. If you can, save such major works for October, when there are no babies and hibernation has yet to begin. And again, consider what you treat the wood with.

  Dogs – Don’t get me wrong, I love dogs (and I quite like cats, even though my neighbours think I am a tad vigorous in my defence of nesting birds), and one day I will live with a dog again. But dogs can kill hedgehogs – I am sure it was a dog that did for one of my radio-tracked hedgehogs in Scotland. So if you have a dog with a thing about hedgehogs, try warning hedgehogs in the garden before letting the hound out at night, maybe with an outside light. Or consider putting it on a lead.

  Feeding – So much of what I have just written is a bit negative – don’t do this, don’t do that. But there are some very positive things you can do to increase the chances of hedgehogs visiting your home (always bearing in mind the transcendental hedgehog and remembering that success is not guaranteed). There are three things a hedgehog needs to feel at home: food, water and shelter. Bread and milk used to be considered the staple hedgehog food and hedgehogs love them – but my daughter loves sweets and that does not mean they are good for her. Hedgehogs do not digest cow’s milk very well, so they can end up with diarrhoea. And while they will eat bread, they are insectivores, meaning that they are designed for eating animals. Whatever Aristotle may have thought, hedgehogs are not vegetarianly inclined.

  If you have a hedgehog-friendly garden, you will not need to provide water as there will be some around. But if the weather is dry, there is no harm in putting some out. The easiest food is just tinned pet food, though you can buy specially formulated hedgehog food – Spike’s Dinner. You will need to leave the food under something low to stop cats and dogs getting at it. An upturned box, with a little doorway cut into it and a stone on top (to prevent the craftier cats and dogs getting at the contents), should be fine. And if you are lucky you will attract regular visitors. I have met people who end up being persecuted by ‘their’
hedgehogs – they turn up and if they find an empty dish, they start to clatter it noisily until they receive the attention to which they have become accustomed. But don’t worry, studies have been done to show that they manage quite well without you.

  Hedgehog Homes – While a hedgehog will probably be happy with a patch of wildness, you can supplement accommodation possibilities. Same idea as the food really, the best bet is to have a garden with natural food and natural shelter, but a little extra won’t hurt.

  The best place for a hedgehog home is in a quiet part of the garden, preferably against a bank, wall or fence. If you can face it so the entrance is to the south, this will allow the hedgehog to warm more quickly and reduce cold winds nipping a sleeping hog’s toes. It is worth considering giving it a spring clean to prevent the build-up of parasites that might hide away in old bedding. The best time is early April, when residents will be out of hibernation and not yet at the baby stage. How do you know if it is occupied? A little bit of detective work. Put a light obstacle in the doorway and the next day if you find it is pushed in, someone is inside; if it is pushed out, they have left; and if it is still upright, the place is unoccupied. But be careful, just in case. A little bit of organic pyrethrum powder, suitable for caged birds, will take care of the unwanted bugs.

  Sometimes hedgehogs will make use of the most unusual homes. I got a letter from a Mr Percy Ponting of Kent, who had been having a pleasant cup of tea with the vicar when they were interrupted by a strange noise. Further investigation revealed a hedgehog pulling the stuffing out of one of the sofa cushions. To reach the sofa the hedgehog would have had to climb steps and walk through three rooms. Mr Ponting had no idea how long it had been resident, but after carrying it into the garden the vicar pointed out that he was probably the first of his kind to exorcize a hedgehog.

  Accidental Disturbance – That is by you of a hedgehog, not courting hedgehogs creating mischief in the bushes or nibbling your soft furnishings. If you uncover a hedgehog nest, do not panic. If there is an adult there, simply replace the nesting material and it can either repair the damage or move elsewhere. If this happens in the middle of winter and the animal is hibernating and wakes up, do the same, but bring out some food for a few nights to help it top up fat reserves. The complications start if there are babies. If there are, then replace the material, handling it as little as possible to reduce the amount of human scent you leave, and then retreat, but keep an eye on the nest to see if the mother returns. If there is no sign by the next morning, call a rescue centre (there is a list of numbers at the BHPS, either on the website or on the answerphone). Do be strict about restraining inquisitive friends. Everyone will want to see the babies I am sure, but the more they are disturbed, the greater am sure, but the more they are disturbed, the greater chance they have of dying. And if the mother has returned, it is not unheard of for her to abandon or eat nestlings.

  As you can see, there is a lot to think about when making your garden hedgehog-friendly, but much of it is common sense. And then this leaves you in a position to enjoy any hedgehogs that come your way, safe in the knowledge that you have done your best. So you can sit on the swing seat with a gin and tonic, happily watching the hedgehog show from beneath a warm blanket.

  If that is not enough for you, there is some wonderful material available on how to rear abandoned baby hedgehogs; how to mimic the massaging lick of a mother hedgehog, stimulating her young to urinate and defecate; how to remove ticks from behind their ears; how to swab maggots from wounds and how to go about removing all further social engagements from your diary as you get sucked into a 24/7 world of hedgehog care. They can be found on the BHPS website, and you can also get in touch with the many hedgehog carers around the country, who will offer you advice. But beware. Hedgehogs can take over your life.

  There is a superb description of how intense the relationship can be in Dearest Prickles: The Story of a Hedgehog Family, by Walter and Christl Poduschka. Published in 1972, this tells the tale of how the discovery of three baby hedgehogs in a garden changed their life. What is special about this is that they charted their progress meticulously, revealing the techniques that worked and not shying away from describing those that didn’t. They discovered that there was nothing in the literature to direct them, so they used what skills they had to great effect.

  I don’t think that anyone would follow their advice on feeding cow’s milk any more, but the Poduschka story does prove it is not lethal. Sadly, the book is out of print, but it is to be recommended, especially for the description of the armpit fetish of one of the rescued animals. It would go wild over Walter’s sweaty armpits and ended up gnawing a hole in his best shirt. I had a friend with a cat that would make a beeline for my armpit and just slip into ecstasy as it kneaded my side and mouthed my clothes. Do I smell like a lactating cat?

  You might think it a trivial intervention to save a few baby hedgehogs, but they do not have life easy. Around a quarter die before leaving the nest and a half of the rest do not survive their first hibernation. In fact, it would not be unreasonable to suggest that hedgehogs are quite dependent on us for survival. After all, they are linked to the progress of humanity, though not in the most obvious of ways.

  Someone is Eating the Suburban Doughnut – Doh!

  Something quite unusual has happened in our relationship with hedgehogs, for we have affected their ability to thrive. Whiz back around 6,000 years and the UK was covered in the wildwood. Mesolithic foragers had cleared patches to assist in hunting. And those patches must have been very attractive to hedgehogs, providing, as they did, additional woodland edge habitat. But the arrival of Neolithic man was to see the beginning of the end of the primeval forests of this fair land. With their fancy agriculture, they began to make massive inroads into the seemingly infinite wildwood. And these new clearings provided even better habitat for hedgehogs.

  Hedgehogs must have seen the coming of man as a great gift from an almighty spiny deity. No longer did they have to eke out a meagre existence surrounded by large trees, trying to find small clearings caused by fallen trees or lightning strikes. Suddenly they were presented with clearing after clearing as the wildwood retreated.

  And imagine their delight at the coming of the Romans and then the Anglo-Saxons, both of whom used hedges as part of their agricultural systems. This is the sort of habitat that hedgehogs were made for and their numbers must have increased markedly. All the way until the arrival of the infernal combustion engine and the drive towards increased field size. Hedgehogs probably thought they were in paradise, give or take the little issue of misidentification as vermin, until the end of the Second World War and the beginning of modern agriculture.

  As modernity imposed itself on the hedgehog’s idyll and farmland was laid waste in the rush to produce more, the once biodiverse landscape of Britain was turning into a wildlife desert. So the doughty hedgehog needed to find a new home. And what better course of action than to follow all those nice tall bipeds, who were also being done out of a home in the countryside, into the new invention of suburbia.

  Suburbia was perfect. Here was a rich and varied habitat. Lawns – hedgehogs must have really thought the gods were smiling when they discovered lawns. Short legs mean wet tummies, but mown lawns means easy walking and no need to go grunting through undergrowth as worms pop up conveniently to the surface. And then those benevolent gardeners would sometimes put out food as well – and who cared if sometimes it was not quite what they would normally eat.

  But now not all is well with suburbia and recently hedgehogs have come up against another challenge.

  Picture, if you will, a doughnut. The urban centre is the empty bit in the middle and the surrounding countryside is the area beyond the sweet calorie-intense cake. And the cake itself is where the hedgehogs like best to be. But we are consuming the doughnut with alarming speed. Suburban gardens, the refuge of the hedgehog after they were driven from the countryside, are being lost to further development. Every back gar
den that becomes a block of flats, every front garden that becomes a car park, is a further nibble at the doughnut. This last point forced the usually oh so reasonable Jeremy Clarkson into making some rather unpleasant remarks. Wiriting in the Sun, he complained that if people are not allowed to pave their front gardens they will have to park further from their front door so that ‘a disease-ridden rat with a punk hairdo can have somewhere to sleep’. I have to admit I quite enjoyed watching a friend custard-pie him when he visited Oxford.

  There is also a worry that the tendency to create another room for the house out in the garden may be having an impact on the hedgehog. Patios and decking, complete with heaters, further remove hedgehog habitat from the garden. Perhaps the next logical step for the hedgehog is to accept dependence on humanity and throw themselves at our feet, begging for domestication. If we have made the outside so inhospitable that hedgehogs have nowhere left to thrive, all that is left for them is to take up residence on a wheel in a cage as a pet.

  I hope that there is no dystopian future in which the only place left for the hedgehog is the pet shop.

  The picture of our relationship with hedgehogs is complex. We are worried when it looks like we are losing them, yet in times past we have persecuted them with extreme prejudice. And when confronted with the tragic news of their decline, there can be a tendency to retreat into a ball of denial, hoping, while we hide away, that some experts will step forward to provide a solution. Well, there are some experts out there doing a fine job. But saving hedgehogs is not the preserve of experts. In fact, I believe the most important work will be done by you and me, by amateurs.