h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hedgehogs are extinct in North America, which is just as well. Those few who want to be exposed to animals with sharp quills can opt for porcupines .

Hedgehogs are much easier to handle than porcupines.

I am not sure that the US had much in the way of hedges as ecological niches. We had much thicker forests and more widespread forests than Europe had.

I remember a hedgehog in our garden when I was a child. It had all these pink bulbs all over its body. It was only years later I realized these were ticks

Hedgehogs are quite small and are mostly harmless, although it is true they are prone to being covered in fleas. The fleas that like hedgehogs don't really like or so you don't need to worry about them spreading. Hedgehogs do have very sensitive lungs, though.
Sadly a lot of people have seen fleas on hedgehogs and covered the hedgehogs with flea powder; alas many leading brands of flea powder kill hedgehogs as surely as it kills fleas.

<BB<

That is the trouble with most medicine I would have thought - we killed the disease. What about the patient? Well naturally we had to kill him to, to cure him

"Hedgehogs are much easier to handle than porcupines" [Dmitri]

That's like saying that the early bird catches the worm. What if you don't want to catch worms or handle quilled animals?

Hedgehogs don't have quills like a porcupine, they have spines which are essentially hard hairs. Stiffer than whiskers, true, but definitely not quills.

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Hedgehogs are *cute*. They are fun to be around. Spike the hedgehog would get mad if we came home late and didn't let him out of his box on time. (They sleep all day.)

He'd gnaw a hole in the box and greet us with a very annoyed expression.

They can be handled. If they trust you, they won't roll up. The underside is really soft fur.

The trick to getting rid of heartworm and fleas is to take the hedgehog to an experienced veterinarian, then release it back into the garden. Also, in Europe, you can buy hedgehog food, which is a help if you have to have them in the house. Because no way am I going to catch bugs....

According to W*k*p*d**, the hedgehog was sacred to Ahura Mazda because 'every day, it eats thousands of minions of the Evil One'.

Yes, I discovered hedgehog food, so I buy some regularly. Cat food is cheaper, but cats prefer it, unsurprisingly. My mum looks after hedgehogs and occasionally finds one to take to the vets, which is hard work, but it is pleasing when one can be brought back to the garden again

Good for your mom! And you. Hedgehogs are so funny when they eat...smack, smack...

Please excuse my misconceptions about hedgehogs. I've never handled one. All I've seen is pictures of them.

Surely you mean mythconceptions as most are made of hot air, not solid wood?

My name isn't Shirley.

Really? Shirley Knott?

If she has grandchildren then she should be known as Granny Knott.

Knott the answer I was expecting!

"The climax of the plot
Should be the marriage knot,
But there's no knot for me."

[from the Gershwin song "But Not For me."]