10 Things for Hedgehogs : Part 6 The Good Food Guide

While people can help hedgehogs with supplementary feeding at the right time of the year (see 10 Things for Hedgehogs: Part 7 Fast Food), did you know that hedgehog have a wide range of food sources, really good ones that you can help with?

Can you guess the range of foods that hedgehogs eat?

Its all of this stuff, with over 50% of their diet consisting of beetles and their larvae, caterpillars and earthworms. The traditional idea of slugs and snails is pretty far down the list. 

Image copied from hedgehog-rescue.org.uk/feeding

That means if we can keep our cities and countryside rich in these food sources, ones which provide them the essential nutrients that they need to have a healthy life (food wise) then we can help maintain this important resource for hedgehogs.

A quick aside about badgers and hedgehogs

For all of those who say that badgers eat hedgehogs (to use that as an other excuse to justify killing/excluding another iconic British mammal) - did you know that the main thing that badgers eat is...wait for it...earthworms!!! 80% of their diet is earthworms as well as insects like beetles. They can also eat hedgehogs and other species like frogs and toads. 

Where you have two species that eat the same food source (competitors) but where one can also eat the other there is a term which describes the relationship - its called Intraguild predation. In areas where there is ample food resources, you can find badgers and hedgehogs living in the same habitat without one wiping out the other.

But this relationship can be impacted so that it changes - how? You've guessed it, we can put pressure on this natural relationship  by negatively impacting the food species that both of these mammals eat - our impacts through pesticides, poor soil management and habitat removal to name but a few, can decimate invertebrate populations. So what's a badger to do if the normal food sources are low? they concentrate on the other species they can find and eat. 

Join us

Help us spread the word about what hedgehogs eat everyday and what you can do (outside of supplementary feeding) to make sure they have lots of good food available to them. Join our social media campaign - using art to showcase the impacts of our 10 things, on wildlife, especially hedgehogs - we are challenging everyone to take part. 

Draw - Photograph - Sculpt - Act -Mime - Dance etc. and post on all platforms, tag @HogFriendly @SHkingstonuni and as many different people as possible - ask them to make their own version and post and so on- keep spreading the word. Use #HHfacts #KUHoglets #hedgehoghelpers on all of your posts so that we can try to find them. 

Lets try to take over social media with #HHfacts

Things that you can do to help with the good food provision:

If we can negatively impact natural food sources for hedgehogs and other wildlife species, we can change that to positively impact them. 

• We can keep fighting government u-turns on neonicotinoids (complete all petitions so that they all get through) two examples of important ones at the moment:
  • https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/569214
  • https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/563943
• Work to minimise or remove pesticide and herbicide use which impacts insects and soil fauna in your own gardens and sites where you work
• Get councils to manage areas for all wildlife https://www.buglife.org.uk/campaigns/no-insectinction/room-for-insects-to-thrive/insect-havens-in-towns-and-cities/
• Don't cover the soil up everywhere using concrete, decking or artificial turf - and where you have local planning applications which you can comment on - if you see green spaces and soil being covered up this way - comment and object. 
• And don't forget - post your art about increasing good food for hedgehogs using the hashtag #HHfacts 

Until next time from the KU Hoglets