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Hedgehogs are innocent little furry creatures that are not harmful to humans. Generally, hedgehogs will get scared and will run away from humans, or they will curl up into a spiky ball. However, their spikes can penetrate the skin and may cause a little discomfort.

Despite their timid demeanor, the hedgehog population has been declining. According to a report in Britain, the population of hedgehogs has fallen by about 50 percent. With this knowledge, we should take certain actions to increase the hedgehog population. This can be done by attracting them to friendly gardens and giving them a home.

However, hedgehogs don’t just wander around your garden normally. There are things you must do to make your garden hedgehog-friendly. Here are some tips that will certainly help attract hedgehogs into garden hedgehog houses.

Before we dive deeper into the different ways of how to attract hedgehogs into your garden, let’s watch some interesting watch about these little animals.

5 Ways to Attract Hedgehogs into Your Garden

1. Create Pathways for The Hedgehogs

While you may want to fence your property to ensure privacy, this may keep the hedgehogs out. So, how do you invite them in? First, you need to create a pathway that will allow your hedgehogs to get into your garden.

Also, by creating hedgehog holes, you are allowing these furry little creatures to enter your garden. A hedgehog hole allows the hedgehog to travel from garden to garden. At night, hedgehogs usually travel around 1 mile. They like to stay near the edges as they feel much safer. Nonetheless, they will also wander around from time to time. During the breeding season, males can go about 2 miles.

The best way to create these pathways is to set up a meeting with your neighbors and devise a plan or come up with an agreement to create hedgehog pathways. The right pathways will undoubtedly attract hedgehogs to your garden.

2. Build a Hedgehog Home

You can also attract hedgehogs into garden hedgehog houses by building one for them.

You can build hedgehog houses by yourself, or you can buy hog houses from different online shops. If you opt to go DIY, you can randomly pile logs and add some leaves to the box.

For an average size garden, perhaps 2 to 3 hedgehog houses are best. Place the box in your garden under the garden shed or thick vegetation. Ultimately, you need to create a safe nesting for your hedgehog. Although these shelters are specifically made for hedgehogs, they can add any aesthetic to your garden. These hedgehog houses can be very decorative, depending on your creativity.

3. Avoid Noisy Places

If you are looking to attract hedgehogs, you should know that they require peace. This is especially true during the day since this is their sleeping time, and they need some quiet.

Therefore, when creating a good hedgehog home, make sure that it is far from busy roadways, businesses, or construction sites. Also, children and noisy dogs can scare them away.

4. Supplement Them with Food and Water

This is very obvious, but this is still worth noting. Hedgehogs need a lot of water, and supplying enough will attract them into your garden. For food, you can use cat or dog pellets to supplement their natural diet. Also, make sure that you put a bowl of water in your garden.

If you already have a hedgehog house, you can leave it somewhere close to it. This is also to encourage them to stay there. During the cold months, you may have to change the water supply regularly as it may get frozen if it gets too cold.

5. Do Not Disturb Them During Hibernation

This is pretty tricky since it is very hard to determine whether a hedgehog is hibernating in your garden or not. However, you need to resist the temptation to disturb the hedgehog if you find that it is hibernating in your garden. Just leave them be and let them hibernate. Usually, hedgehogs hibernate during November and March.

Final thoughts

Being at the top of the food chain, human beings are quite unchallenged by most species. However, this does not mean that we should pay attention to other living things, especially those declining in population. Hedgehogs are not harmful and deserve to live well and populate. The above tips can help you attract hedgehogs into garden hedgehog houses.