Anne Fowler, of Tidal View Close, Aveton Gifford, writes:

We found a hedgehog in our brown bin last week.

I had just put in the contents of our kitchen bin and when my husband went to put some grass cuttings in there the hedgehog was obviously attracted by the new offerings.

It must have got in there when I emptied a sack of ­garden refuse that had been left out on the lawn overnight, as it was not yet full.

If we hadn’t spotted it, it would certainly have been tipped into the refuse lorry today and come to a nasty end.

The moral is: don’t do what I did, but instead leave your ­garden sacks where hedgehogs won’t see them as potential hibernation spots, as I will in future.

I returned the hedgehog to a snug corner of the garden

and it quickly disappeared.

I will leave any slugs I find nearby.