Go the whole hog
CARING Frank and Veronica Tett are overrun with hedgehogs – after turning their home into a hospital for desperate orphans. The kitchen provides triage and medication. Their spare bedroom is intensive care. And their own bedroom is a nursery.
The couple currently care for more than 80 hoglets but have had over 500 patients this year because of the unusually hot weather.
Their mothers become too dehydrated to produce milk so they leave their vulnerable babies behind to go and look for water instead.
But tragically many mums never return.
Frank, 80, said: “During the recent dry weather we’ve had about 70 or 80 babies at one time.
“We’re in touch with major rescue centres across Britain and they’re all having the same problems.
“Every room in our house is taken up with hedgehogs. The only room that they are not allowed in is the sitting room.”
The couple say they have a 65 per cent success rate at their Andrew’s Hedgehog Hospital – named after a blind creature the couple once took in.
They hand-rear the animals until they are strong enough to be released in the wild – often on country estates including Princess Diana’s former ancestral home Althorp. But with their own house near Scunthorpe, Lincs, full the couple want to set up a new hospital in a £100,000 ecofriendly log cabin with state of the art facilities. So far they have raised £50,000. Former sales and marketing director Frank said: “It will boast all that’s required to nurse, care for and house sick and injured hedgehogs to get them back to their chipper, foraging selves in the wild. “We aren’t getting any younger. I’m 80 and Veronica is a couple of years behind me and we want to leave a legacy.” Since the 1960s the UK has lost 95 per cent of its prickly population – down from 30million to one million. “Hedgehogs are Britain’s best-loved wild animal,” Frank said. “There’s evidence to suggest numbers are stabilising which is excellent as they’re an endangered and protected species.” The British Hedgehog Preservation Society says if you find an abandoned hoglet “constant warmth and regular feeding and toileting is essential. “Their best chance of survival is with someone experienced with their care.” ■■To find a rescue centre near you call the BHPS on 01584 890801. Donate to help build the new hospital at