Comments | hedgehogs: hello. just a few questions.

robotdeathgrip in hedgehogs

hello. just a few questions.

May 31, 2008 10:43

my fiance and i just brought home our first hedgehog, a rescue we named hammy.
she's done nothing but hide from us all day and night, and she will only eat and drink if we take away her hiding spots (an igloo, and a tube.) could this just be the stress of moving to a new home or should we be concerned?
we don't want to totally remove her hiding spots ( Read more... )

behavior: socializing, supplies: bedding/liners, pictures

Comments 9

purplepathos May 31 2008, 16:07:06 UTC

There's a ton of really good information at Hedgehog Central that you might want to check out. I'm sure that if you leave her food and water and hiding spots all in there and leave her alone, she'll eat and drink when she needs to--you just won't see her. It's pretty normal for them to hide most or all of the time. She will most likely stop putting up her quills every time you handle her if you keep handling her gently and consistently, but it may take a while. There are lots of bedding options that can work; I use fabric cage liners. If she's red and itchy, you might want to have her checked for mites--they're very common in hedgehogs. Good luck!

robotdeathgrip May 31 2008, 16:11:51 UTC

mites come from the bedding, right?
how do you check for them? from a vet i assume?

purplepathos May 31 2008, 16:16:36 UTC

Mites come from other hedgehogs, but once she has them, they're hard to get rid of. Yes, they do end up in the bedding, which adds to the difficulty of eradicating them. You may be able to see them crawling around on her if you look closely, and if she'll hold still enough that you can look through her quills. A magnifying glass helps, but sometimes you can see them without it. If you can find a vet that has hedgehog experience, I'd recommend that you take her in for a visit.

silver_apples May 31 2008, 16:26:38 UTC

She needs time to adjust. Some hedgehogs are never fully comfortable with people, but in time she should learn to accept you ( ... )

rainofbastards May 31 2008, 20:20:52 UTC

I should explain (I'm the aforementioned fiancee) That we only took out the hiding places for a couple minutes, specifically because she didn't seem to be eating or drinking after we'd had her for 24 hours, and it seemed the only way to convince her to explore her cage and find that she had food and water at her disposal. Otherwise she'd ball up in her igloo and wouldn't come out, even at night.

Also, the igloo she came with was much too small for her. I made her a new bedroom out of a small cardboard box, which she has freedom to move in, and that seems to have gotten her more to a point where she'll leave the hiding place from time to time and eat, or just play in her cage.

silver_apples June 1 2008, 04:00:12 UTC

Ah, okay.

I count the kibble when I feed Sophie, so I have a good idea of how much she ate and which kinds of food she prefers. Although if the food level looked unchanged after a day, making sure she knew the food was there was probably a good thing.

Ha! dangerryan June 1 2008, 06:33:50 UTC

Comics mirror real life? Good luck with the marriage thing! I think it's great ( ... )

mr_esty May 31 2008, 17:30:16 UTC

She's a cutie :)
Best of luck, I'm sure she'll come arround!

sterlingspider May 31 2008, 20:10:58 UTC

she growls and hisses at us, and sticks up her spikes when first picked up no matter what, My boys both still do that and they're a couple of years old now, but once they realize that it is me picking them up they calm down in seconds ( ... )