For those of you who don't know, a FAQ is a set of answers to Frequently Asked Questions, or at least the best try at those answers for what we know at any given time.

A FAQ is usually more of a starting place, a guide to where to find the real details, if you will, but it does try to answer the most basic questions, as well. Don't think of it as a replacement for a good book, but maybe as a supplement, or a plase to find out about books, and other things.

Currently, the HTML (WWW) version of the Hedgehog FAQ still has a few rough edges to it, but this version is now much better than my first attempt (addresses are no longer all on one line, etc.). If you do find any major glitches in formatting, please let me know -- at this point, it is all too possible that I've missed something, and my eyes are starting to glaze over from looking at it too many times. Thanks.../Brian

• Part 1 - About the hedgehog FAQ
• Part 2 - Finding more information
• Part 3 - Introduction to hedgehogs as pets
• Part 4 - Hedgehogs as pets
• Part 5 - Hedgehog care and understanding
• Part 6 - Advanced Topics in Hedgehoggery
• Part 7 - Wild Hedgehogs

[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4] [Part 5] [Part 6] [Part 7]

If anyone has any thoughts or comments on the FAQ, or ideas to add, please send them to me at macnamara@hedgehoghollow.com. It's still got rough edges, and input is ALWAYS welcome.

When I first started looking for information on Hedgehogs on the Net, there was almost nothing out there, so I figured if I offered to put together a FAQ on hedgehogs, all the people who did know things would contribute. Nathan Tenny had put together an initial mini-FAQ (that I didn't know about at the time), and he was generous enough to send it to me as a fantastic starting point. The entire project has succeeded beyond my wildest dreams. The Hedgehog FAQ is constantly growing, and changing as we learn more about both pet and wild hedgehogs, and is the result of many, many generous and knowledgeable people -- all of whom have contributed to the better welfare of hedgehogs everywhere.

Notes for people using a local copy of the FAQ

If you do take a copy of the HTMLized FAQ, there are a couple of places that will need some explanation:

• There is a standard format to which approved USENET FAQs have to adhere. As a result, I make all my changes to that text based format, and then convert it, automatically to HTML. This explains much of the techno-babble at the beginning of each part.
• I have written a C program that converts the FAQ into HTML. I am working on making it distributable, but for now it relies on a number of library functions from the company I work for, which I cannot distribute. None of these are that involved, but using them saved me a lot of time getting things going. I hope to have things distributable in the not too distant future.

• For the most part, you can simply save the files (part1.html through part7.html) into a web accessible directory and point people to them. Wherever possible all the links are relative (see below for exceptions).

  To save the files, simply select each part in turn, then use your browser's "Save As..." capability (usually off the "File" menu.

• Due to the way that some of the links can interact, I was forced to make 'some' of the hyperlinks full paths that are explicit to my site, rather than all of them being relative. The problem exists with the links for the embedded sections (where you see links in the form of [0.0] which point to section 0.0). If you take local copies of the files, you will need to manually change these. You should be able to search for any string in the form of:

  "http://www.pci.on.ca/~macnamar/hedgehogs/faq/part"

  And replace it with your own proper prefix. I will warn you again, that a relative link will NOT work in these specific cases. If you don't believe me, try it, or email me and I'll explain why.