Do you want to help wildlife find shelter before the winter season by building an inexpensive hedgehog house in your garden? Below you will find simple instructions and practical tips for installation!
If you want to attract small critters to your garden and encourage them to stay, you can build a hedgehog house yourself. In this way, you offer them a safe place to sleep, hibernate or breed and you can reuse old materials in a sustainable way. Since these wild animals also hibernate, such shelter can protect them from the cold and hungry predators. To do this, follow some simple steps to build a simple home for wild hedgehogs to make your garden area more animal-friendly.
What needs to be taken into account in order to build a safe hedgehog house?
Hedgehogs are adorable animals, but they have their specific needs, which is why it is important to ensure the appropriate conditions in the garden. Such structures should be large enough to allow wild animals to move freely. In addition, hedgehog houses should be cold and heat resistant, as well as offer protection from moisture and predators. Although all of this may sound complicated at first, many inexpensive or...recyclable materialsfor this and enable an easy DIY project. Before you realize this, you should consider the following important factors during construction:
- Hedgehogs prefer shady areas that don't get too much sunlight or wind. For this reason, a location under a tree or bush with a south-facing entrance would be perfect.
- It is also recommended to provide plenty of leaves around the hedgehog house as hedgehogs will likely use these to build their own nest. It is therefore best to leave a pile near the cottage.
- Since hedgehogs like to eat beetles, worms, snails and caterpillars, a nearby compost heap would also be helpful in attracting insects. This provides the critters with plenty of food before they go into hibernation, and the animals can even nest in the compost heap.
- When building a hedgehog house, you can also cover it with vegetation. Only leave the entrance hole and the ventilation pipe open. Not only does this provide plenty of foliage for them to build their nests from, but it also camouflages your homemade hedgehog house. The pile of compostable leaves can therefore help to attract the animals to your homemade hiding place.
- The best time to set up the hedgehog house is either spring (April) or autumn (October). In spring, hedgehogs have finished their hibernation and are looking for a home to build a nest for their little ones. In the fall season, the young ones finish weaning and the hedgehogs look for a warm place to hibernate.
How can you build a hedgehog house out of a flower pot and design it as a shelter?
Involving children in building a hedgehog house can be a fun activity for the whole family. Although this simple project can be accomplished using cardboard, it is unstable and difficult to clean. Instead, use recyclable materials lying around, such as flower pots, which you can combine with plastic or wooden boxes. Old storage boxes or wooden wine boxes with lids would also be perfect for this. Otherwise, you can use the sample instructions below as a guide to hosting hedgehogs in your garden. Here are some building materials and tools you can use for this:
- Plastic or wooden box measuring 45 cm X 45 cm, but also bricks for stacking
- Flower pot made of plastic, ceramic or terracotta
- Optionally a 1 m long hose or small plastic pipe, galvanized nails and hammer
- Electric saw for cutting and drill with which you can make holes in the box
- Spade or shovel
- Dishwashing liquid and water
- Old bed linen, hay, dry tree branches and autumn leaves
- Plastic wrap or bag
Follow simple steps and build a cat-proof hedgehog house
- Once you find a quiet and shady garden area where you can place the hedgehog house, you can start building it. The ideal location for this would be near a garden border, such as at the base of a wall or fence.
- First, protect your hands from scratches and splinters by putting on gardening gloves.
- Then try to dig a hole about three inches deep and 18 inches wide using a garden shovel or spade.
- You can then spread a thin layer of dry leaf litter on the bottom of the hole before building the future hedgehog house. You can use any plant material such as leaves, twigs and bark that has fallen to the ground.
- Then take the chosen box or stack bricks about 30 cm high and 45 cm deep. If you use a wooden box, be sure to remove any visible nails, splinters, or staples. Before doing this, clean the container and the lid by rinsing them and letting them dry.
- You can then put the lid back on and turn the box over so that the lid becomes the bottom of the hedgehog house.
Build a wooden tunnel for the hedgehog house and equip it with a ventilation pipe
- First, start building a tunnel for the hedgehog house by cutting wood into four 12-inch-long pieces and nailing them together lengthwise.
- At this point, you can use either a flower pot or wooden planks as materials for the tunnel. If you are building this out of wood, skip to the next step.
- First, use a jigsaw to cut a 11cm x 15cm entrance hole from one side of the box at the bottom.
- Then gnaw the box from the inside of the tunnel to attach it to it.
- Next, you should drill a hole in the back of the box and insert a hose or pipe for ventilation. The pipe or hose should also point to the side so that no rain can get in. Otherwise, you can simply drill a few small holes around the top of the shelter.
- Then you can fill the future hedgehog house using dry leaves, hay or straw and put the lid back on.
- Make sure the box is hidden between soil and leaves or bury it under tree trunks. Of course, you should leave the entrance and the air duct free.
Create the tunnel from a flower pot for shelter
- When using a flower pot, you should cut off its bottom to create a hollow cylindrical shape, which serves as an entrance pipe similar to the tunnel.
- The entrance cut out in the box should be approximately the same diameter as your entrance pipe. Therefore, it can be helpful to hold the flower pot with the bottom cut off against the box and mark it so you know how big the hole needs to be.
- Then insert the bottomless pot into the entrance hole of your hedgehog house. This will prevent cats or larger predators from entering. However, do not leave the edges too sharp, otherwise hedgehogs could injure their feet. To do this, you can attach tape to the edges.
- Finally, you can cover the shelter with a plastic wrap or bag and only then camouflage it with leaves or twigs.
What can you fill a hedgehog house with?
After assembling the hedgehog house, you can also make it more comfortable for the new residents. Hedgehogs typically build their own nests with whatever they can find, but placing bedding inside can make the interior even more inviting for wildlife.
- However, dry leaves, twigs and grass clippings are also suitable for this, as they can keep hedgehogs warm in the cold.
- Most animals of this species find and eat their food on their own, rarely nesting in the same place, so you don't need to fill the shelter with additional food.
- Instead, you can place two shallow saucers or plates with water or pet food outside.
- However, keep food away from the entrance of the hedgehog house so it doesn't attract predators.
