Burnley teacher co-founds her own hedgehog rescue centre

Burnley teacher co-founds hedgehog foster centre

Transcript

00:00We're a rescue for Hedgehogs, Temrex and Egyptian Hedgehogs when they come in, set up in 2023.

00:08We've got 21 foster carers and we're getting lots of Hedgehogs adopted all over the UK.

00:13And so how have you, your passion for Hedgehogs developed? Was it when you were a little girl or?

00:18No, when I was little I didn't really have anything Hedgehog, just when I got to starting

00:23uni I realised you could have them as a pet. I thought they were cute, went to visit some,

00:27got my own pets and then from there joined Facebook pages and things like that and

00:33got in touch with other people who had Hedgehogs. Realised all the different varieties and

00:37different personalities and then got into rescue. So quite a lot of people have Hedgehogs as pets

00:43then? Yeah, lots of us all over the country. But you look after the ones that people who can no

00:49longer look after them or they're poorly? Yeah. You take them in? We take them in, if they need

00:53to go to the vets we're self-funded so we fundraise, take them to the vets. Best case

00:58scenarios they come in, they're with us for a few weeks and then we get them adopted and they go to

01:02a home. So how many Hedgehogs has Happy Quills looked after since you launched? We've had 52

01:08Hedgehogs in our care since 2023 and three Tenericks. And tell me about the Hedgehogs

01:15themselves, have they got their own little personalities and characters? Yeah, some are

01:19very grumpy, like to curl up in a ball and huff at you, sound like a steam train. Some are really,

01:24really friendly, they like a cuddle. But when we get them adopted out, take that into consideration

01:28what people want from the pet, what experience they've got. So we wouldn't adopt out a really

01:34grumpy one who needs a lot of time to someone who's never had a Hedgehog before. Is it quite

01:39unusual to own a Hedgehog as a pet or is it quite a loss of people? I find that when I talk about it,

01:45people think it's unusual, but to me it's normal. We've done it for that long and I know so many

01:50people who have them as a pet, to me it's not unusual. But I know that when I talk to people

01:54who aren't familiar with it, they still go, oh you can have it as a pet. And I'm like, yeah it's normal.

01:58And you can give advice to people about how to care for them properly and what to give them,

02:03what to feed them? Absolutely, on our website we've got lots of different care guides.

02:07We have care guides on housing, food, vet care. We've written all our care guides and put them

02:13together so they're there. We send those people via email and things if they ask questions

02:18to help them out with applying.