Loose stool, REALLY stinks

[Mafeb]

Hi folks,
I'm sorry if this has a lot of info...

We have two females that live together (always have) and spend most of their tone snuggling. We also one in her own cage bc she prefers it that way. They've lived here since they were stuff weeks old (last March).

All three run in their wheels (solid) for hours at night but we've noticed that a few times a week the wheel in the cage with the two girls is *covered* with loose, rank smelling, medium brown poop. Other times it just has normal looking poop in it.

One of those girls gets green poop when she's stressed ... This isn't that. The other girl is getting a bit on the almost chubby side so we're watching that.

Lone hedgie almost never poops in her wheel.

We haven't changed their food or bedding brands, their cage arrangements etc. We wash their food & water bowls 1-2x daily and the girls are active and behaving normally.

Is this normal periodically? It happens a few times a week. The temp in their cage is less steady than it had been in the summer (we're in New England) but it stays btwn 74-84 and we watch it closely.

Thoughts?

[Mafeb]

While cleaning a wheel at 3 am bc it was so bad it couldn't wait till the kids wake up in three hours I realized I was overthinking.

I'm pretty sure it's urine mixed with poop 🙄

Thanks for reading!

[Yukidama's mama]

Do you only have one wheel in the cage? If you're housing two females together then there needs to be two of everything including the wheel and the cage should also be double the size of the standard recommended size as well.

It's probably getting too dirty if there are two hedgehogs using one wheel?

What are the fat and protein percentages of the food? If it's too rich this may be causing loose stool. I'd suggest getting some probiotics like benebac to help their digestive track be more balanced.

It could be that one hedgehog is getting overweight if the other hedgie is hogging the wheel. Is this also the girl who gets green poop? She may be over doing it and gets loose poop perhaps?

If it's just urine that's causing the smell and making the poop look loose, make sure they are drinking enough and provide a bowl for each of them, if you aren't already. You can check the colour of their urine, it should be slightly yellow. If it's dark or like fluorescent then they're not drinking enough.

Hope this helps!