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Post-Hibernation attempt care??

2K views 4 replies 3 participants last post by  Artemis-Ichiro 
#1 ·
My three month old girl Sylvia had a hibernation attempt last night. We're not sure what happened, we think it's a combination of her not liking to sleep in her igloo on her heating pad and (maybe) her water spilling all over her and getting her wet.

In any case, we warmed her up immediately. We put her in a warm bath at first because I didn't know better but, luckily, I was able to get a hold of the breeder right away and she told us to get her out of the water, dry her off, and warm her up. We used a human heating pad and hand warmers and lots of anxious love and she perked up immediately! Right back to her friendly, speedy self!

We got her back in her cage for the night with the heat in the room cranked up and took away the fleece she'd been sleeping under, meaning her only option was to sleep on the heating pad and she did! I checked on her this morning and she was grumpy (because I was waking her up at 9am, probably) but uncurled quickly and her belly was toasty warm again! Yay!

However, it looks like she didn't eat any of her food, drink water, or use her wheel in the night. I'm a very nervous hedgemom and I want to know what to do next to make sure she's ok? She has another heating pad and heat lamp on the way from Amazon and in the meantime the temp in the room is turned up to 80 and she has the current heating pad and hand warmers. Anything else I should do? Should I be worried that she didn't eat?
 
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#2 ·
I would actually totally remove the heating pads. This is one of the issues with them - if the hedgehog is away from them, they're not as warm & can potentially attempt hibernation. They can also keep the hedgehog from being normally active because they don't want to leave the heating pad.

What kind of heat lamp did you get? Just want to check, as the ones that emit light aren't good for hedgehogs, so you need a ceramic heat emitter bulb, which only gives off heat. You do also need a thermostat with it though, to regulate the temperature.

Leave the room temp as it is, but also make sure you have or get a digital thermometer for her cage - the temp can vary by location in the room, especially down towards the floor and on outside walls, by vents, etc. Then take out the heating pad and avoid using those again. Having a CHE set up for the cage will be a lot better & keep the whole cage to a safe temperature for her.

It wouldn't hurt to offer her the food or put some in bed with her to see if she'll eat some, but I wouldn't panic over that just yet. Make sure she eats tonight, otherwise you'll need to syringe feed her a bit. But once the heating pad is gone, she'll likely return to being totally active.

Last thing - keep an eye on her for a week or so to make sure you don't see any sniffling, sneezing, or discharge from her nose. They can sometimes develop URIs from hibernation attempts, which require a vet visit.
 
#3 ·
I ordered a CHE (the only reason she didn't already have one was because I was worried about it setting my old, rickety house on fire...now I don't think I care if it does!:shock: ) and it should be here by Tuesday I think? I don't want to take away the pad until then because that's all she has other than room temp. I also did order her a digital thermometer and another heating pad because I'm great at overkill.

I can promise I'll be doing nothing but monitoring her obsessively for the rest of forever. I'm supposed to go to a wedding shower tonight and I'm seriously considering bailing on it in favor of staring at Sylvia all night.
 
#4 ·
I'm at work right now, but I just texted with my roommate and she went to check in on Sylvia and she said it's hot in the room, "hotter than I would be comfortable at as a human", which sounds like a good sign. Sylvia is apparently sleeping on the heating pad in her igloo.

I think we're going to go to petsmart/petco tonight and see if we can find a CHE, lamp, thermometer, and thermostat there so we don't have to wait until tuesday to get her a proper setup.
 
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