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Hedgehog Highways

Hedgehogs can travel around about one mile every night between our gardens in their quest to find enough food and a mate. The trend these days is to have impenetrable chain-link or wooden fences and gravel boards all around our gardens and this isn't good for hedgehogs.

If your garden is enclosed in this way you can make their life a little easier for hedgehogs by removing any physical barriers – for example:

  • You could make holes in or under your garden fences and walls for them to pass through.

  • You could plant a hedge instead of a solid or chain link wire fence.

  • Install gravel boards that have a pre-cut hedgehog sized hole in them.

  • Cut a hole in the bottom of your garden gate. This will give them a way in and out of your garden.

If you are going to make hedgehog highways it is always a good idea to talk to your neighbour first and get them on board with the idea. When I talked to our neighbour about a hedgehog highway between our gardens they were delighted and their young daughter helped her dad make the little ramp to get them up over the gravel board.

Once you have made your Hedgehog Highway you can register its location on Hedgehog Street.

Hedgehog Highways

Due to the fact that our gardens are on a slope it was difficult to find an place where the top of the gravel boards weren't too high up. The only place suitable was behind our greenhouse. with some old bits of timber from an old raised bed and a pallet I soon had a ramp for the hedgehogs to scurry up.

Hedgehog Highways

Our neighbour and his daughter built a ramp on their side of the fence.

Hedgehog Highways

Our hedgehog highway is complete!

Hedgehog Highways

We already had a gap under our garden gate but one night we spotted a rather large hedgehog struggling to get under it. The next day I had cut a hedgehog sized hole in the garden gate for it. Another Hedgehog highway!

The activity one night through our Hedgehog Highway under our garden gate.