Hedgehog Delight!

Wednesday – Late Evening
I haven't seen any hedgehogs around my estate for ages. I used to see them running along the pavement and across the roads, but I can't remember the last time I saw one. So, I started thinking about my back garden and why I don't see any hedgehogs here. My patio is cordoned off from the rest of the garden by 7ft high blue wooden trellis, which is covered in chicken netting – this was originally created an outdoor area for my posh persian cats, whom sadly are no more. There is a wrought iron gate (also covered in netting) to access the rest of the back garden. So its pretty obvious really why I have never seen a hedgehog on my patio!!! I have a big project on at the moment and this includes sorting out my entire garden and its going to take a long time indeed.

Late this evening, I decided to cut out the wire netting from a square hole of the trellis at ground level and carefully bent back all bits of wire, so there were no sharp bits – it looked the perfect size for a hedgehog to get through! I then sprinkled a few meal worms either side of the hole. My theory was that if a hedgehog was around in my 'jungle' part of the back garden it would sniff out the meal worms, find the new access hole to my patio, gobble a few more meal worms the other side of the hole and then venture onto the patio to find a bowl of meal worms, peanuts, Go Cat, chopped up apple and Whiskas chicken in jelly cat meat!

MY PLAN WORKED!!!!! Within minutes of me coming back into the house, I had a hedgehog gobbling a bowl full of meal worms on my patio! I couldn't believe it that it worked that quickly! I felt really excited, but it also made me feel really bad, that I had had no access for a hedgehog to visit my patio! The hedgehog did not leave that bowl of meal worms until it had finished eating them all! It didn't go to any other bowl and then left via the new exit! The bad news was, the next time I looked out of the window I had a much bigger visitor...... a black cat feasting on the free cat food!!! Not happy!

Plan for Thursday evening: adapt my RSPB bird feeding cage to sit over the hedgehog feeding bowls and cut out a exit hole, just big enough for a hedgehog to crawl through – this should then be cat proof! Then I need to find a plastic lid or buy a piece of perspex to put over the top to make a rainproof feeding station – sorted!

HOME-MADE HEDGEHOG HOUSES!
https://youtu.be/mNnbvPdVYRU
https://youtu.be/aM2QwBTbkT8
https://youtu.be/8xSp1o8UcmA