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Bathing and dry skin

2K views 4 replies 3 participants last post by  Mandybenj 
#1 ·
My girl is 12 weeks old, and has been quilling for about two weeks. When I first noticed how dry her skin was I did some research and tried to give her an oatmeal bath with flaxseed oil in the rinse water to help soften her skin. I'd only had her for a week at that point, but I really wanted to try something to help make her more comfortable...not surprisely she did NOT take well to the water. I was only able get a cup or two of the wash and rinse water over part of her back before she was squirming so bad I had to stop in fear of hurting her or getting water in her face. I tried to just give her a foot bath the other night and that went just as badly... I basically had a wet washcloth in a bin, the water barely covering it in the middle and reaching a half an inch tops on the outsides...she still freaked and did everything she could to get out.

I can tell the quilling is getting worse, as she's become much more grumpy and moody lately. I'm trying the humilac spray, but I'm not sure its even reaching her skin, and I'd like to try the bath again, but I'm afraid she'll freak our and try to hide her head while in the water and get a uri...

Any advice would be greatly appreciated, I'm new at this and a little paranoid, lol :)
 
#3 ·
Have you tried bathing her in the tub? A lot of hedgehogs, incliding mine, are much calmer in the tub than in anything else. I have evolved to using a small pyrex glass pan in the tub now to better control water depth, and my hedgie accepts it with little fussing. When they're quilling, you can give them an oatmeal bath every week. I did not find that it really lessened the scratching for my girl though.

I use Humilac spray just for regular dry skin, and my hog HATES it and it takes me spreading her quills and holding her down and another person to spray it on. Or if you can get your hedgie to curl up (mine doesn't usually do that) the spray will reach the skin. But if you aren't spraying her skin directly when her quills are spread, it won't do much good. You will be able to tell because the skin will look wet. It also takes a few or more good sprayings to work if the skin is really dry.
 
#4 ·
Ah, also- the last time I gave mine an oatmeal bath she decided to put her nose in the water even though I put her in butt-first. She inhaled it BAD and was sneezing so hard for a minute it rocked her whole body. She sneezed here and there for a few days, but was fine. She is also clumsy at drinking and inhales water from her bowl almost daily, so don't freak out if it happens, just watch her and keep her warm, because nothing may come of it.

If you're nervous though, you can start her off with no water and slowly add it, or start with foot bath level water and make it deeper by adding it with a cup after she's in it, adding it away from where her body is or letting her sniff the cup first.
 
#5 ·
Thanks so much for the advice!!! I'll definitely try the tub, or something that's more shallow... She couldn't see over the edges of the bin I used before, so maybe that freaked her out a little... I try to spray the humilac on her when she's balled up, but she doesn't usually stay that way for more than few seconds when I pick her up, so I can only get one or two spritzes on her. I'll try putting some flax seed oil in her food instead :)
 
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