Super dry skin

[ivyiemoreschi]

My sister had bought a hedgie unknowingly it had mites, and unfortunately we dont have an exotic vet in our area so we did some home remedies which cured the mites, but he does have super dry skin so I put a few drops of baby oil on his back because he was itching and i felt really bad. But this morning when i went to go check on him there were a lot of quills in the bottom of his cage. I used the baby oil because it was all I had at the moment. Is baby oil bad for them? Do you recommend anything else i should be using if so? Also what is the best food to feed them? My sister kind of just abandoned him so I am currently taking care of him, handling him, etc. Any help or advice would be great. Thank you so much.

[Kalandra]

Baby oil tends to not be recommended. Its not really all that friendly to skin. It doesn't really soak into the skin but sits on top and makes it greasy. Its not a very soothing or healing product at all. You could try added a couple of drops of vitamin E oil or flaxseed oil to his back. Both would be more healing. The downsides of oil is that if this is not just dryness but is something else, for instance bacterial infection, it could exacerbate the problem.

I highly recommend finding a veterinarian that is willing to see him though to have a skin scraping done. You may not have an exotic vet in the area, but find one that is willing to learn.

A couple of thoughts, The first is that he likely still has mites. Home remedies tend to not work all that well. Eggs get left behind and several weeks later your hedgehog has had a recurrence.

The other is that there could be a bacterial infection starting to get out of hand. Bacterial infections after a mite infestation is not unheard of. Bacterial infections on the skin can cause redness and pustules around the base of the quills, but they can show up just as super dry skin with a lot of quill loss.