Housing is an important consideration when buying a hedgehog. They are extremely active animals and need to have a rather large cage. They cannot be house trained so having the run of the house is usually not much of an option. There are two cages that work out well. A pet taxi that you would normally have for a small to medium size dog works well, as well as an aquarium, preferably a twenty gallon long size.
Some pet owners have a small cage for the hedgehog but have a big play area.
Hedgehogs like to burrow, so it is important to take into consideration bedding for your new pet. Pine bedding they sell in pet stores is not a good thing for these animals since they are prone to respiratory diseases. If you want to use bedding like that you should buy the aspen variety that does not contain any of the harmful pine oils that you find in pine bedding. The least expensive bedding that works extremely well is shredded paper. Hedgehops love to play in the shredded paper because they are burrowing animals so the shredded paper encourages them to burrow.