Veterinary referrals

Let’s work together

Veterinary Referral Process

Prickles and Paws are facing an ever increasing need to accept referrals from veterinary practices. To make this process smoother please now complete this online form.

We hope this will allow efficient transfers of cases, saving both you and the rescue time, while ensuring that the best ongoing care can be provided. We still encourage you to complete our triage forms as this is helpful in summarising care and treatment.

If you would like to discuss a case or request advice on appropriate treatments, please contact the rescue and speak to Katy or Diane. If they are unable to help they will put you in touch with our vet.

Useful Resources

Some important factors we ask you to keep in mind:

  • Prickles and Paws is a small family run charity, we have to fundraise to continue our work and are heavily reliant upon our fantastic team of volunteers. Our volunteer drivers can claim mileage for the drives so it is important we ensure hedgehogs are stable and viable for rehabilitation.

  • The rescues catchment area has dramatically increased in the past few years, we now cover the entirety of Cornwall and at times into Devon, this means our resources are often stretched very thin.

  • The rescue does not have veterinary facilities or the ability to euthanise hedgehogs onsite. We are able to provide oxygen, have incubators, an ultrasound probe and a range of medications and SOP’s for their administration. We have a weekly vet visit by our lead vet Hannah Kitchen, based at Churchend in St Austell. We are in regular contact with her outside of the visits to discuss and alter treatment plans are required.

  • If the rescue is at capacity or our phone triage indicates a hedgehog is likely to require euthanasia, urgent treatment/ is unlikely to survive the journey to us, our team will advise members of the public to take to their nearest vet for assessment and stabilisation care.

  • The charity are working on expansion plans and have secured planning permission to build a new Hogspital however at present we do struggle with capacity and may ask you to hold the hedgehog for 24 - 48hrs whilst we make space to accommodate it.

  • Our protocols are forever changing to reflect the latest research and through analysis of our own data. Our co-founders have over 15 years of experience with hedgehog rehabilitation and the rescue has published 3 scientific papers in peer reviewed journals. We may be the ‘crazy hedgehog ladies’ but we are science led in our work and practices.