Hedge hog alert

[Robert Cummings]

This time of year these prickly little critters are getting a little tired, saving energy for their winter hibernation. Today I was clearing some garden debris from a clients garden and I felt something very prickly in the heap, upon further investigation it turned out to be a young hedge hog having a lazy snooze in the warm autumn sunshine. I put on my gloves to save any injury, the spines really do hurt, and we placed it under some dried leaves in a hole in the hedge. It's so easy to injure these creatures at this time of year as they are much more lathargic in the daytime and don't readily move out of the way when one is swinging garden tools about, it's so easy not to see them, so folks please watch out for the Tiggywinkles as you go about your autumn garden chores.

 

[alp]

I don't mind being pricked if I can see a live one. I have only seen a dead one all my life!

 

[Robert Cummings]

This one was definately alive and well and living in Somerset.

 

[marlingardener]

Finally, an animal with spines that we don't have in Texas! We have fully armed vegetation (cacti and trees with spines and thorns), animals that hiss and bite, but by golly, we don't have hedgehogs!

 

[alp]

Finally, an animal with spines that we don't have in Texas! We have fully armed vegetation (cacti and trees with spines and thorns), animals that hiss and bite, but by golly, we don't have hedgehogs!

Do you have to have grills to bar the these reptilians from entering your house, like the Australians?

 

[marlingardener]

We haven't had a problem with snakes coming in the house. Perhaps they don't like the decor?
No grills, just doors that fit tightly to the floor and secured screens on the windows.

 

[alp]

... Perhaps they don't like the decor?

Screen is the word, I think, in Australia too. I wonder how I can make spiders dislike my decor!

 

[Robert Cummings]

Hedge hogs are quite harmless little creatures also they are quite shy,I don't think they come in the house.