I've linked a video about a hedgehog that will warm your heart-

Here is a link that might be useful: Percy's story

Thank you cearbhill for the lovely video with a happy ending. It showed me as well that I could probably put the hedgehog outside safely in the enclosed kennel on nice days - our five rescue cats who can and do use that space freely have already developed a mad respect for the spiny little guy. Shall we just say, "lessons learned"?

Hedgehogs are a gardeners friend, eating slugs and snails and other undesirables. They have a cute nose and chubby little hands which they curl up under them if they feel threatened and what you see is a prickly ball. They also carry around some nasty parasites. Mythologically hedgehogs are a delicacy of gypsies who supposedly enclose the creature in a ball of clay and put this on an open fire, when the clay is hard baked it cracks open exposing the meat within, with spines stuck to the clay. I have never tried it but chances are, without a huge dollop of ketchup it might taste a bit like road kill.