We visit the prickly patients at charity for hurt hedgehogs

Nadia Al-Dujaili runs The Forth Hedgehog Hospital.

When a prickly problem comes along, Nadia Al-Dujaili is the person to call.

The 39-year-old ex-SSPCA employee has had plenty of experience of looking after hedgehogs, sometimes as many as 150 at once, but she took it one step further when she made the decision to convert her home into one of Scotland’s only hedgehog hospitals.

A little hedgehog being nursed back to health at the hospital.

The Forth Hedgehog Hospital, in Rosyth, is currently home to 51 hedgehogs, who will be rehabilitated and, eventually, released back into the wild.

Nadia looks after the animals in her house and in two sheds outside. She’s on call 24 hours a day to help the injured creatures, aided by a couple of volunteers.

Hedgehog hospital

The hospital has helped about 3,000 of the small creatures since it opened, and gives each of its guests a name. Currently those names are all on the theme of Marvel film characters and include Wanda and Black Panther.

Nadia fell in love with hedgehogs while working at the SSPCA’s Small Mammal Unit.

She said: “I knew every single one in our care and their characters, so that’s how I got into hedgehogs.

“I was ill for a few years, but during that time the thing that kept me going was planning this.

“I spent two years planning it and I got registered charity status in 2012 and then started building up supplies, fund-raising and going to car boot sales. In 2014, I got my first hedgehog, which was exciting.

“I’m a licensed hedgehog rehabilitator, so I can have up to 60 at the one time, which I’ve had. It’s my passion and I feel like it was something I was meant to do, but it is. It is not for the faint-hearted. It can be really heart-breaking at times, seeing human cruelty towards them, seeing hedgehogs in really horrendous states.

“We see quite a lot of that and it’s mostly kids kicking them about, but there have been a few adult situations.

“When they first come in they get around-the-clock care and, as they gradually get better, you don’t handle them as much and they don’t need as much treatment.”

Nadia also hopes to expand the hospital and help even more hedgehogs in the future.

Hedgehogs in danger

Some hogs are brought in after being hit by a car, and others with cuts caused by garden strimmers, whose users haven’t seen them in the undergrowth.

There are also baby hogs that can become separated from their mum, while other can be struggling to find food and are dehydrated.

Six week old baby hedgehog, Gwen Stacey, being weighed on the scales.

Nadia said that, unfortunately, not all make it back to the wild, with about 65% returning. The hedgehogs unable to return to the wild go to stay with people who have walled gardens, so they can live out their lives safely.

Nadia added: “The biggest message we try to get through to the public is that, if a hedgehog is out during the day, then there can be something wrong because they are nocturnal.”