Course Content
Course Introduction
Get started with everything you need to know before beginning the course. Learn what to expet, how the course is structured, and how to get the most out of your learning journey.
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1. Species Overview
Discover the origins, natural behavior, and physical traits of the African pygmy hedgehog. This chapter explores their evolution, how they live in the wild, and what makes them unique among hedgehog species.
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2. Legal & Ethical Considerations
Learn the legal and moral responsibilities of owning an African pygmy hedgehog. This chapter covers regional laws, permit, ethical sourcing, conservation concerns, and what to do if rehoming becomes necessary.
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3. Choosing Your Hedgehog
Learn how to select a healthy African pygmy hedgehog from a responsible source. This chapter helps you spot health indicators, avoid unethical sellers, and understand the risks of wild-caught hedgehogs.
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4. Preparing The Enclosure
Set your hedgehog up for a safe and healthy life with the right housing. Learn about cage size, temperature, lighting, bedding, enrichment, and why hedgehogs should be housed alone.
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5. Daily & Weekly Care Routine
Build a consistent are routine to keep your hedgehog healthy and happy. From daily feeding and bonding to weekly cleaning and health checks, you'll learn how to make good care a habit.
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6. Feeding & Nutrition
Learn how to meet your hedgehog's nutritional needs with the right balance of kibble, insects, and natural foods. This chapter covers safe foods, feeding schedules, common health risks, and special diets like raw or BARF.
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8. Health & Hygiene
Learn how to keep your hedgehog health through proper hygiene, early symptom recognition, and preventative care. This chapter explores common illnesses, chronic conditions like WHS and IVDD, and how poor breeding can impact long-term health.
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9. Veterinary Care
This chapter helps you navigate veterinary care with confidence, from finding an experienced exotic vet to understanding routine check-ups, recognizing emergencies, and planning for costs. Learn how to communicate effectively and advocate for your hedgehog's health.
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10. Enrichment & Play
This chapter explores how to keep your hedgehog active, curious, and mentally stimulated. Discover safe toys, exercise essentials, stress-reducing setps, and how to build and enriching weekly routine. Including tips for supervised free roaming.
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12. Seasonal Care & Hibernation Risks
This chapter explains how temperature and seasonal changes affect African pygmy hedgehogs. You'll learn to recognize hibernation triggers and symptoms, how to respond safely, and how to prevent hibernation attempts through proper care and environment control.
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13. Traveling With A Hedgehog
Learn how to safely and comfortably travel with your hedgehog, whether it's a short trip to the vet or a long journey. This chapter covers preperation, carrier selection, minimizing stress, post-travel recovery, and important legal considerations for domestic and international travel.
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14. Your hedgehog journey continues
As you reach the end of this course, it's time to reflect on all you've learned. This final chapter brings everything together with a course recap, a final exam to test your knowledge, and practical next steps to deepen your understanding of hedgehog care. Whether you're a new owner or an aspiring expert, this is just the beginning of your journey. You've built a solid foundation, now it's time to continue growing.
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Introduction to African Pygmy Hedgehogs

Navigating through the course

Welcome to your course environment! To help you get the most out of this experience, here’s a quick guide on how to move through each section with ease.

At the top of your screen, you’ll find a bright green bar displaying the title of the course. 

  • On the left side, you can click the arrow to collapse or expand the sidebar.
  • On the right side, the X icon allows you to exit the course interface at any time. Your course progress will be safed and you can always pick up the course right from your user profile.

The sidebar on the left runs the full height of your screen and show you an overview of the entire course: all chapters, lessons and quizzes. Use this to track your progress and jump between sections, but remember: you need to complete every part to finish the course and earn your certificate!

At the bottom of each lesson, you’ll see a light green navigation bar with two buttons:

  • Previous – Takes you back to the lesson or quiz before this on.
  • Next – marks the current lesson as complete and moves you forward.

Below that navigation bar, you’ll see a white bar with a lesson tracker that shows you how far along in the course you are. Next to it, you’ll see a green button that says ‘Complete lesson‘. You need to click that button to mark the lesson complete. The course will not do this automatically, in order to allow you to go back and forth between lessons. 

How to complete the final exam

At the end of each chapter, you’ll find a quiz to test your knowledge.

  • Click ‘Start quiz‘ to begin.
  • Questions may be true/false, multiple choice, fill in the blank, short answer, image answering, matching, ordering or open-ended.
  • Read the instructions carefully for each question, then submit your answer and click the ‘Submit‘ button to move on to the next question.
  • At the end, click ‘Submit quiz‘ to finish.

After submitting, you’ll find an overview of your score and can check details to see which question tou answered correctly.. or incorrectly. 

You’ll need a score of 70% or higher to pass each quiz. Don’t worry, you have up to 5 attempts for each one, so take your time and review the lessons carefully before retrying.

At the end of the course

Once you complete all lessons and the final exam, you’ll receive a message letting you know if you’ve passed. If you did, congratulations! You’ve earned your personalized certificate, which you can download anytime from your eLearning dashboard or on the course page.

Let’s get started! And remember, learning at The Hedgehog Program is all about curiosity, care and confidence. You’ve got this!

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