Nesting in garden waste?

[Emily]

Hi, so I’ve had a few hedgehogs in my garden recently (not sure how many exactly) and My hedgehog house isn’t ready yet. In the back corner of my front garden behind some bushes we dump the cut grass from our lawn mower for when we mow the grass. Is it possible that hedgehogs will make their nests in the piles of cut grass or use it for their nests or anything like that?
P.S apologies for the amount of posts I’m putting on the forum it’s just that I find them very useful and especially with all the quick responses. Could I suggest/ request that a forum is created for all questions and concerns, as me and probably many others have lots of questions and never really know which forum category to write in.
Thanks

[Nic]

Hi Ellie2016

I think it’s unlikely that a hog would actually make a nest in a pile of grass cuttings. They normally use longer grasses, but combined with other materials, i.e. leaves, etc. But as it rots down, they might forage around the area for earthworms, etc. But if you had a large pile of larger garden waste, such as branches, twigs, long grass, etc. it’s possible they could build a nest amongst it.

[Emily]

Thanks. We have a compost heap and multiple piles of grass cuttings, leaves, branches twigs etc, tall flower beds, hedges, an allotment etc in the back garden which is much bigger than the front garden which I think would have been a great area for the hedgehogs to roam around in but it’s all fenced off and walled all the way around as we have 2 dogs who have escaped many times and have killed small birds and mice in the past not that we think our dogs would kill a hedgehog and also lots of slug pellets in the back garden so we thought maybe not to have any hedgehog highways into the back for the hedgehogs safety and just to give the hedgehogs the front garden which is smaller(I can’t really describe the size) also we’ve given the hedgehog access to our wood logs storage In the front that’s in a kind of like a corridor connecting to the back garden but we’ve blocked the entrance to the back so it can get to the wood but no further . Would you agree with this decision?

[Author]

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