Hedgehogs are a gardeners best friend as they love to eat garden pests such as slugs, caterpillars and beetles and so hedgehogs should be encouraged into all our gardens. The problem with modern gardens is they are often completely enclosed by walls or fencing down to the ground, blocking hedgehogs paths. Hedgehogs also need to be able to roam around a large area, around 1-2 miles, to find enough food and to meet other hedgehogs so they can breed.

Since 2002 we appear to have lost around 30% of the population and therefore it seems likely that there are now fewer than a million hedgehogs left in the UK. If we don’t start looking after our hedgehogs and improving habitats for them as well as food sources (pesticides are also causing a reduction in their numbers), they may become extinct in our lifetime, as early as 2020. They are as much at risk as the tiger and are also on the endangered species list.

Quercus have designed a hedgehog hole into our natural oak woven fencing panels to enable hedgehogs to be able to roam through gardens more easily, to find food, mates and suitable places for winter hibernation. Customers can request to have a hedgehog hole put into one or two of their fence panels for their gardens at no extra cost and an oak tree sapling to grow the next generation oaks and hedgehogs.