forest and garden animals

hedgehogs

If your garden is a safe haven for hedgehogs, then help them out with a protected shelter. In the spring, autumn and winter hedgehogs sleep about 18 hours per day. From July till November, out of the blue a nest of young hedgehogs there can appear in the compost heap or in a corner filled with fallen leaves, so don’t be too hasty or diligent in cleaning up. If you have a pond, make sure the edges are rough and/or put a slanting plank in the water, so that the hedgehogs won’t drown. Hedgehogs are extremely useful and, above all, it’s great just to see them scratching around the garden in the evenings. Because their living environment has been reduced by human intervention in nature, they now are on the list of endangered species. By supplementing the hedgehogs, we can help them through the winter, so that our children and grandchildren can also encounter them in the garden or woods.

Hedgehogs are omnivores; they like to eat soft invertibrates, such as earthworms, slugs, caterpillars, insects and pill bugs, but also sometimes a small lizard or frog. Now and then an egg is on their menu. Furthermore, they gladly eat fruit, berries and sometimes some mushrooms. Never give hedgehogs milk, bread, salted food or left-overs!

Garvo’s ready hedgehog feed comes highly recommended. The animals find it tasty, and it’s especially developed to keep our hedgehog, the ‘Erinaceus Europaeus’, strong and healthy and to provide a good fat layer from which they get their energy during their hibernation.

Feeding advice

• fill a small dish with 1090 alfamix hedgehog. Fill the dish again only when it’s empty try to put the dish somewhere sheltered, where other animals can’t eat it (several animals find it tantalizing) never give them milk: milk can make hedgehogs sick