the cost of cutting
A lot of people, when hearing ecologists talking about how we must save the insects and do more to help them, think: "Yeah, I know that's important, but I don't really care about bugs and creepy crawlies so much - what I really care about and love is animals." And these are nice, kind, compassionate people.
But what they don't realise is that animals, like the hedgehog, are dying of starvation because we're not caring enough about the insects.
The majority of a hedgehog's diet is caterpillars and beetles. Moths and butterflies need food and cover to lay their eggs, which turn into caterpillars, which also need to eat. So when you cut down long grasses, wild flowers, 'weeds', ivy and stinging nettles, or moan that the council hasn't cut back the undergrowth beside a path or around a recreation ground, or mown the grass neatly in the park, you are destroying the habitat and food for the caterpillars. The same goes for beetles and their larvae.
If the caterpillars and beetles have no food and die, it means there's nothing for hedgehogs to eat.
THE FUTURE IS UNMOWN
Hedgehogs don't eat slugs and snails, which is just as well as they carry parasites like lungworm and fluke (which are fatal if not treated). But if there are no caterpillars and beetles, and a hedgehog is starving and has no other source of food, they will be forced to eat anything - and slugs are always around. It's a desperate, short term solution, because instead of dying of starvation they will die of parasite invasion.
A whole generation has grown up thinking that any grass, anywhere, that’s not cut and looking like a lawn, is somehow neglected and untidy. In our arrogance we've decided that plants that are no use to us, or aren't attractive, are 'weeds' and we must kill them, control them. We didn't give a thought that some other little lives depend on these plants.
So please leave a bit of your garden to nature. And ask your council to stop mowing and cutting back unnecessarily. Start putting lives over looks.
hitting the hay
A well made bed
A proper hedgeog house, although worth every penny, is expensive.
Please don't waste your money on cheap immitations; make a bed instead.
This home made bed will be warmer and will last longer than any so-called house on the market you can buy for under £40.
Somewhere to call home
If you are collecting a hedgehog from a rescue, where she has been treated, make her a bed to put her in, when you get home. It'll give her a place of safety and warmth until she recovers from the move, and feels able to return to her own nest.