"He might have brain damage too, but he's lucky to be alive, " says Vanessa Reavy, gently stroking Harry's head. Twelve youths in their late teens were using the hedgehog as a hurling ball in a Ballymena car park when a woman passer-by intervened and took him from them.

"Look at him now, lying in my arms, " says Vanessa. "He's the most trusting wee article you could meet. He has total faith in human beings despite what he's been through."

Harry is one of 54 residents of the Happy Hedgehog Rescue Centre, run by Vanessa and her husband Nigel from their home in the Castlereagh Hills in east Belfast. There are many such centres in Britain but this is Ireland's only one.

It houses sick or orphaned hedgehogs who would die if left in the wild. Eleven hedgehogs . . . the weakest ones like Harry . . . live in the Reavys' dining room and conservatory. The others, who are nearly recovered, live in the shed or garage.

"Come and meet Carol, " says Vanessa. "She was pregnant and trapped at the back of a garage wall in Holywood. She scratched so much to get out, she lost her claws." Carol has since given birth to four babies.

The Ulster Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (USPCA), vets or members of the public ring the Reavys about hedgehogs in distress.

Calls come at all hours and the couple travel the length and breadth of the North rescuing animals.

Since the centre opened 10 years ago, 2,500 hedgehogs have crossed its threshold. They're usually named after the people who found them.

"This is Kenny, " says Nigel, holding up a hedgehog who is blind in one eye. "He was lying injured in a school playground in Bangor and we named him after the science teacher who found him." In the garage are baby orphans Ant and Dec. Then there is Forrest, named after Forrest Gump, a favourite Reavy film. He was rescued in Portadown at three weeks old, in the final stage of pneumonia.

"He was so weak he couldn't roll into a ball to protect himself. A magpie flew in and picked out one of his eyes, " Vanessa says. "He loves to be fussed over.

He rushes to the bars of his hutch when anybody approaches. He's such an attention seeker, he should be on obsession and full-time occupation . . . blame too much Beatrix Potter as a child".

Nigel, an assistant bank manager, gave up his job because the workload was too much for his wife alone. Cleaning out the hedgehogs' hutches, making their beds, preparing their food, and administering any injections or medicines required takes the couple four hours a day. The very young babies need feeding every two hours, day and night.

"I reared my own children, now I'm doing it all over again, " jokes Vanessa.

The Reavys' work is also educational and social.

They take the hedgehogs to schools . . . "we're booked out until 2009", old people's homes, and Women's Institute mornings. They visited children's hospital wards, until MRSA. They receive no official funding, paying for everything themselves.

"We buy special puppy milk from America which the baby hedgehogs need, and that costs over �1,000 ( 1,500) a year alone, " says Nigel. "Our vet is very good. We're charged only for medicines."

Schoolchildren often donate cat- and dog-food, which adult hedgehogs eat.

Harry isn't the first cruelty case. The Reavys rescued three baby hedgehogs being used as footballs by Ballymena children. The fourth one was already dead when they arrived. Sometimes, injuries are accidental.

"We tell people to light bonfires on the day they're built, otherwise hedgehogs move in, " says Vanessa. "Unlit bonfires are like four-star hotels to hedgehogs. One man heard these awful screams from his bonfire and poured water over it. The hedgehog was horrifically burned. He'd a lump missing from his back as big as a golf-ball." The 12th of July is hedgehog disaster.

One hedgehog died when an elderly man accidentally cut off half its head with a garden strimmer. "People should be very careful with strimmers, and slug pellets shouldn't be laid because they poison hedgehogs, " says Nigel. "Children's football nets in gardens should be taken down every night because hedgehogs become entangled in them."

If there's a hedgehog permanently living in your garden, it's likely to be female . . . "the males are out roaming, looking for conquests", Nigel says. People should leave water, not milk, for their hedgehog, and cat or dog-food, lamb, chicken or beef, but never fish nor pork.

"Hedgehogs are strictly nocturnal, so if you see one out during the day there's something wrong with it and you should ring for help immediately, " Nigel says.

About 75% of the hedgehogs are returned to the wild on recovery; 5% who are blind, or have other serious injuries which make them vulnerable, are placed in organic vegetable farms (they do a great job eating garden pests), or with families who have walled gardens. Two have gone to a Dublin doctor.

There have been countless offers to adopt Harry, but the Reavys are keeping him. He will accompany them on school visits when he's fully recovered.