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Sitting out one sunny evening (Sunday) after all the rain about 9.30pm was surprised by a mother hedgehog and three babies emerging from under my shed. What a treat that was. Now all my neighbours are saying how rare it is to see them these days..are they becoming rare  do you know? Will mum come back again next year to rear another brood?  Is there anything i can do to keep them happy?

Keep up the slug population!!  ;)

Otherwise cat food is meant to be good (not bread and milk as my mother used to do).

It helps to leave a little 'wild' area if you can to provide winter hibernation areas (logs, brush wood, leaves etc)

Loz

Hi Nitiram,

I have hedgehogs too :)!  You'll find lots of info. about them on http://www.software-technics.com/bhps/.

You don't need to feed them at this time of year, though they will happily eat food if you put it out.  Cat or dog food is fine so long as it's meat-based (not fish).  Milk upsets their stomachs but they need fresh water, so the best thing you can do is put out a dish of water.  They'll also eat dried fruit - & lots of slugs & snails!  Don't put out slug pellets though as these can kill hedgehogs.

They will probably visit several gardens but they may well come back & breed in yours again if they have somewhere suitable to live - a pile of logs with a hole underneath, plenty of dried leaves, or you can even make (or buy) them a house (details on the site above) - just don't paint or treat it if you do as they don't like chemicals.

Hope they stick around!

Be careful with leaving out wet cat/dog food for too long at this time of year... the flies lay their eggs in it, and if these get transferred to the hedgehogs they can suffer from fly-strike (i.e. the eggs hatch, and the maggots try to eat the tasty portions of the baby hogs...).

It's fine to leave out... just not for too long.

And a good water supply is a must - but if it's a biggish bowl, leave a bit of wood/stepping stones about... because I've seen a hog that, in desperation to avoid drowning, ripped out every single claw it possessed trying to extricate itself from a container.

Thanks for all the advice. have been feeding them meat cat food ..not fish. Have brought it in if not eaten as we have had some wet weather this lastw eek.The hedghog web site was informative, thank you for the url.

They shuffle around the garden in the evening, such a joy to watch.