We turned our home into a 'hedgehog hospital'

Sharon Longhurst is so devoted to helping hedgehogs that she hasn't had a holiday in almost three years

A couple have turned their home in Fife into a hedgehog hospital in a bid to help the spiky mammals recuperate when they are found ill or injured.

Sharon and Andy Longhurst have built a maternity ward in their Burntisland garden, an intensive care unit in their garage and they manage a fleet of volunteers in hedgehog ambulances.

The pair, who often spend all night feeding orphan hoglets, have treated 567 hedgehogs since they set up the Burntisland Hedgehog Haven at their home almost three years ago.

Sharon, 49, who hasn't been on holiday since, told BBC Scotland News they were fully trained and hold a licence to care for 40 animals, which they then return to the wild.

This pregnant hedgehog gave birth at the Longhurt's home after they freed it from rope from a football net

The Longhurst's work with hedgehogs has seen them shortlisted in the animal category of the BBC's Make a Difference Awards in Scotland.

"If there's a hedgehog out there that needs help and it's in pain, I can't say no, we have to help it," said Sharon, who is also a lollipop lady. "It's a full-time job,' she said.

"We always say we have to draw a line, we cannot take any more but then you get that phone call and we're like 'come on, bring it in."

The pair, who have three children, also say people regularly turn up at their home unannounced with hedgehogs that need their care.

Of all the hedgehogs that have been treated by the Longhurt's 65% have survived.

"If we don't help it, it will just die," said Andy, who also works as a bus driver in Edinburgh.

Sharon and Andy said people turn up at their home in Burntisland with hedgehogs that need their help

The pair are trained in how to care for hedgehogs as well as in first aid for the animals.

They have also put 90% of their volunteers through the course.

"We are not vets but we can rehabilitate hedgehogs, anything bigger than a 50 pence piece wound-wise would go straight to the vet and antibiotics are always issued by the vet on an individual case basis," Sharon said.

She said it all started when they came across a poorly hedgehog at the side of the road when they were out for a drive to Kirkcaldy.

"We ended up driving it out to Alloa, which is a 50-mile round trip to get it to the SSPCA wildlife hospital," Sharon said.

When they found another poorly hedgehog a couple of weeks later they made the trip again.

So they turned their house into a rescue centre - with seven ICU units, 40 cages and a team of 18 volunteers help clean the cages and check the animals.

Since then the couple have had hedgehogs covered in fly larvae, tangled in football nets, unwittingly cut and speared by gardening tools, and bitten by dogs.

Others have been found with exhaustion, diseases or burnt from pesticides and other chemicals.

The couple also raise hoglets

The couple also set up the Scottish Hedgehog's Rescue Alliance, which has centres in Perth, Dundee and Dunbartonshire - where they take hedgehogs if they are at their 40-animal capacity.

The couple enter running races, hold events, raffles and tombolas in order to keep the operation going, which costs £800 a month to power seven incubators, as well as food and bedding. They spend a further £3,500 a year on vet bills.

"We will do all we can for a hedgehog, if it needs X-rays, investigations done we will try and do all we can to get that hedgehog healthy and back out in the wild," said Sharon.

"We love hedgehogs so much and there isn't enough help out there," she said.

Brushing fly eggs from a hedgehog

European hedgehogs are in a steep decline, leading the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) to update their status to "near threatened" on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

This classification indicates the species is close to qualifying for a threatened category and faces significant risks without intervention, primarily due to habitat loss, fragmentation, and intensive agricultural practices.

Hedgehogs can live up to five years but often only survive a year in the wild and have two litters of up to six hoglets a year.

"They've got so much against them," said Andy. "There are so many myths about them.

"A lot of people think they are riddled with fleas. We've only had one with fleas out of 567.

"We will do this until we are unable to - they are adorable, they are really lovely."

Next week, the couple will find out whether they have won their animal category in the BBC's Make a Difference awards at a ceremony in Glasgow.

The award also covers the work the couple do to highlight the plight of hedgehogs and debunking myths.

The winners will also be announced on BBC Radio Scotland's Mornings programme with Kaye Adams on 29 September.