Micklefield Hedgehogs

09/06/2026

🌿🐝🦔 Come and Say Hello at Micklefield Open Gardens! 🦔🐝🌿

We'll be at the Micklefield Open Gardens event this Saturday and Sunday with a table in the churchyard alongside a variety of other lovely stallholders.

We'll have:

🌱 Garden-ready plants, lovingly grown by our wonderful volunteers

🐝 Bee Hotels, handmade from recycled wood and perfect for Mason Bees

🦔 A fun Hedgehog Hunt for visitors of all ages

Whether you're looking for plants to brighten your garden, a home for solitary bees, or just a fun day out exploring the beautiful open gardens, we'd love to see you.

Do stop by for a chat and come and join in the fun!

03/06/2026

Vote for your favourite animals to go on the next banknotes.

We are NOT telling you to vote for Britain's favourite spiky mammal, but you could if you wanted to...😆

Tell us which animals you would like to see on our next series of banknotes by 3 July 2026

26/05/2026

🦔 POND ESCAPE RAMPS 🦔
Hi everyone. I wanted to share something important about garden ponds and hedgehog safety.

You often see posters saying “put a ramp in your pond”, but ramps are *not* actually the best way to help hedgehogs escape.
Hedgehogs can swim. When they fall into a pond, they swim around the perimeter endlessly looking for a way out, until they can't swim any longer.

If this means swimming underneath a ramp, they will often do exactly that without realising the ramp is supposed to help them escape.

Much better options are:
🌿 Plants in pots within the water's edge, that they can climb onto and then use to scramble out
🪨 A sloping cascade of rocks or pebbles reaching up to the pond rim, and ideally over the edge as well, so the hoggie can climb right out
🟫 A piece of rubber matting over the side of the pond, especially a doormat with coir attached for extra grip, or a piece of lawn/grass stabilising rubber matting which has spikes and holes.

These options are all far more effective than a simple ramp.

Also, ramps made from willow or hazel may look attractive and “natural”, but they can actually be dangerous for hedgehogs.

I know that everyone on this page is dedicated to making your ponds as wildlife-friendly as possible. Thank you all. 🦔

25/05/2026

Please put water out for the hedgehogs. It is so hot!

08/05/2026

Little feature of hedgehogs at 2:32

A very special delivery for David Attenborough, beloved by people (and animals) everywhere 💚To honour Sir David’s 100th birthday, His Majesty King Charles i...

08/05/2026

LANDMARK WEEK

What a wonderful coincidence that this year’s Hedgehog Awareness Week falls alongside Sir David Attenborough’s 100th birthday!

To celebrate, we’ve been busy setting up hedgehog footprint traps with the fantastic Micklefield Cubs, while several villagers have kindly volunteered to host the traps in their gardens or nearby public space. We’re excited to discover where our local hedgehogs are living - perhaps they’ve even moved into the new-build estates!

Unlike Sir David, most of us can’t travel the world helping frilled lizards or blue-footed bo***es in the Galapagos. But we *can* make a real difference much closer to home by helping one of Britain’s most loved native animals - the hedgehog.

Why not sign the Hedgehog Pledge this year and see what positive changes you can make?

You can sign up online, or simply pledge to take one or more of these actions to help save our hedgehogs:

THE PLEDGE
* Open up your garden so hedgehogs can wander safely through.
* Create a ‘wild space’ in your garden or plant some wildflowers.
* Always check carefully for hoggies before strimming, mowing, or turning over compost bins.
* Reduce - or completely avoid - using pesticides, herbicides, and insecticides.
* Lift up football nets and garden netting when not in use.
* Put out fresh water all year round or, if you have a pond, make it accessible to hedgehogs by adding stones and plants to help any hedgehog that may fall in.
* Become an NHMP spotter OR log sightings on the Big Hedgehog Map: https://bighedgehogmap.org/

You can also sign the pledge here:
https://www.britishhedgehogs.org.uk/take-the-hedgehog-pledge-this-spring-sign-up-form/

This Hedgehog Awareness Week, we’re asking people to take the Hedgehog Pledge! We’ve chosen seven practical actions that will have a positive impact on hedgehogs and other wildlife – one for each day of Hedgehog Week.Sign up & take the pledge – pick just one or do one every day of ...

08/05/2026

Happy 100th Birthday to the legend that is Sir David Attenborough!

29/04/2026

UPDATE
Although quiet on facebook, we have in fact been busy.
We have refurbished the mini-rescue - 🖌️🖌️painted the rough concrete and brick walls, dealt with a 'damp' problem, put down new flooring, and gently relocated the little field mice 🐁 who had just set up home in the shed 🛖.

We have sent lovely old blind hog HILDA on her way to her forever garden over in Kirklees.
We have brought BESSIE back from the edge - our first ever case of cryptosporidium where the hog has survived! She is still very ill but we are hopeful.
Big girl DANI is out of hibernation and just needs some checks so she can be released.
Old boy BLUE is here to recover from some skin issues.
MAGIC MIKE has just arrived with an injury to be sorted.

And finally, we tried very very hard to heal WOMBLE but we just couldn't work out what the problem was until it was revealed to be a spinal tumour. RIP little Womble. Son of Sally, born last year at Hedgehog Emergency Rescue, Bingley Yorkshire HERBY rescue. Thanks to microchipping, we now have histories on many of the hedgehogs who turn up.

Pictued: Hilda

09/04/2026

🌟 **Thank You for Your Generous Support!** 🌟

A huge thank you to the National Rail office in York for their generous donation - your support truly makes a difference! 🙌💙

We’re especially grateful to Dave Booth for nominating us and helping make this possible 🙏✨. Your kindness and community spirit are greatly appreciated.

Thank you again for helping us continue our work 💙 and we have spent it on new flooring which was desperately needed.

31/03/2026

We released PARKIN last night at Kippax Wildlife Corridor, which is very much more like A than B below.
We hope she does well. Like all our hogs, she has been released somewhere with lots of foraging, varied planting, ponds and hog houses. We don't release in places which look like B because it is basically dead space.