Our Facilities
Our facilities at the Leicestershire Wildlife Hospital cater for the needs of almost all British Wildlife species where we are able to rehabilitate them until they are ready to be released back into the wild. An outline of the specific units are:
Intensive Care Unit – for critically ill patients that require close monitoring and treatments. This is where we house our incubators which are a critical piece of equipment to keep animals at a constant temperature.
Prey Unit – for prey animals brought to us in need of treatment and rehabilitation to allow separation from predatory animals to reduce stress and therefore promote health.
Predator Unit – for predatory animals brought to us in need of treatment and rehabilitation.
Hedgehog Unit – large hedgehog housing to allow us to cope with the large quantity admitted to the wildlife hospital every year for a variety of reasons – underlying disease, injury recovery, weight gaining during hibernation period, malnutrition improvements and endo/ectoparasitic recovery.
Bird Unit – to rehabilitate garden birds of all varieties allowing us to monitor feeding, exercise and socialisation.
Oiled Bird Unit – facility to care for water birds brought in off ponds, rivers, lakes etc contaminated with oil. This facility allows us to remove oil contamination to feathers and closely monitor bird health in response to possible oil poisoning.
Isolation/Barrier Nursing Facilities – to treat and care for animals suffering from infectious and zoonotic diseases that can easily spread between patients.
Education Unit – a new educational unit recently built is allowing us to provide talks to students and members of the public about our wildlife hospital and specific animals that come into our care. We are also holding events in this unit such as wreath making, quiz nights and more so that we can boost our vital fundraising. If you are interested in an educational talk on site or off site, please email us.
New facilities currently under construction:
New Isolation Units – Due to the rising cases of avian influenza, we are having to be increasingly more careful about the isolation of new birds brought into our care in order to ensure that they do not have bird flu. Each bird must be isolated for 2 weeks before they can move into other units housed with multiple birds. We are currently appealing for funds to build this isolation unit which will also incorporate a new reception area and veterinary unit. Please see our ‘news’ page for more information
Nursery Unit – for orphaned animals in need of hand feeding
Brand New, Bigger Bird Unit – larger facilities to care for garden birds and birds of prey in a split unit
Predator Unit – this will allow us to increase the number of predators that the hospital is able to take in at any one time
Due to Covid-19, funds are low and the building of our new facilities have been put on hold. Each building costs £30,000 just to build and they then need to be kitted out. If you, or your company would like to sponsor one of our buildings to allow work to resume, please email us at [email protected].
We are not open to the public for viewings, however, if you become a friend of the hospital, you will be invited to exclusive ‘friends’ days where you will be able to see selected areas of the hospital.