Anyones hedgehog go completely crazy/nuts???

Sorry about bumping this old thread, I just found it while searching for info a few days ago when I was worried about Quinn's odd behavior, and I might have found a reason, so I figured I'd post here so HixVAC could see it.

A few days ago, Quinn pretty much went nuts, in a way similar to what's described in the original post. I had her on my knees, she was exploring as usual, when at some point she pretty much started bolting away from me, and struggling to get out of my hands when I'd catch her, to the point where I was forced to put her back in her cage because I was afraid she'd injure herself.

She then spent all evening and night bolting around her cage, rolling in her litter (ew), pushing all of her furniture around. While this might seem like usual hedgehog behavior, the extremeness of it compared to her usual behavior was still very odd. I was worried, but at the same time I didn't know if I should be. It felt odd to be worried that my hedgehog was over active, right?

I had much trouble sleeping that night, because I kept hearing her trash around, and had to go check on her once in a while. She flipped her waterbowl over twice (by pulling the fleece liner), so I ended up having to remove the bowl and putting a waterbottle up instead. When I got up for work she was still at it. Before I left for work I put her cage back in order (she would jump away from my hands instead of balling/popping). When I came home that night she had messed it all up again. Her cage was like a war zone, with all of it's content pushed in a heap in the middle of the cage, food strewn everywhere, and she was sleeping in a corner of the cage, directly on the plastic floor (since she had messed up the liner too), and started huffing when I got close, silly head had messed up her cage so much she had nowhere to hide!

I gave her a bath (she did roll around in her poop after all) that night and cleaned up her cage. She was still a bit hyperactive that evening, but she did not mess up her cage again. She went back to her usual behavior now.

I had seen her act strangely like that about a year ago, but it was a little less extreme and didn't worry me as much.

I was planning to just post my experience here, and see if other people had ideas about this kind of behavior, but before I did I visited a few threads, and found a link to Hedgehog World. Funny coincidence, the front page has an article that appears to explain this exact situation!

Over the years, we've made a lot of observations about how the weather can influence hedgies. Most hedgehog owners have had the scary experience of attempted hibernation first-hand, or have seen hedgies splatted out when the weather is warm. What many hedgehog owners are not aware of is that hedgies can be significantly affected by changes in barometric pressure!
It's been my experience, and that of many hedgie owners I've talked to, that hedgies get more active when there is a gib weather front moving in. The incidence of "My hedgie is going psycho and trashing its cage" emails that I get rises significantly and I see it in my own hedgies too. It also seems to affect hedgies' breeding. When weather patterns are amok, it has been my experience, and that of other breeders with whom I've spoken, that hedgie mamas are more likely to abandon or destroy litters when there are rapid changes in barometric pressure. This seems to be a greater factor than time or season of the year. I'm not sure how to put together a statistical analysis of this phenomenon, but the observational data is pretty persuasive!

Click to expand...

This could have a lot of sense! On monday we had a lot of rain, and through the week the temperature oscillated over and under the freezing point. Today we got a good little snow storm. The freakout happenned between tuesday and wednesday. It doesn't look like I can see the barometric pressure of past days on my weather site, but I wouldn't be surprised there were unusual changes, considering the week we had.

I'm glad Quinn got back to normal, and I had figured it wasn't something to be too worried about since it only lasted a day, but I'm pretty glad I found a possible explanation for it.

Could this be what happenned to your hog, HixVAC?

I did consider anything in her environment that could have changed and affected her, but really, nothing did. My hand soap, the soap I use to wash her stuff, my hand cream, her food, everything's been in use for a good while. Her cage hasn't been moved and she still gets the same amount of light ect.

As for a traumatizing event, well I put her on my lap to watch TV. :/ I did dab a bit of vaseline on the tip of her ear since it was dry, but that's the second time I do it and she didn't have any issue with it the first time. Her ears are nice and smooth now.

Apart from that, I dunno. I did practice my sax a few hours previous, but again it wasn't the first time I did, and she's used to noise (though I admit that my sax is louder than my TV ect will be). I did wonder if I hadn't accidently hurt her when I picked her up, like moving a spike in an uncomfortable position or something, but since the freakout lasted so long I'm not so sure anymore.

I'm not sure something I would have done that could have bothered her would have affected her for over 24 hours... I though the weather change thing made sense because it would have kept affecting her constantly, as opposed to something I would have done that had stopped the day before. If I had changed something that made her cage smell different, maybe that could have been an explanation. But since I can't find anything, this article is pretty much the only thing I found that fits my issue.

I don't think it's that farfetched to think she might have been affected by barometric changes. Even if we're inside and the temperature in my appartment doesn't change, I'm still affected sometimes by drastic changes in the weather outside (dry hands, itchy back, stuffed sinuses). And animals ar well known to sense those things better than we do. And I'm not sure being inside shields us from the barometric pressure...

Anyway in my case everything is fine again, I just wanted to post this for others who might see it happen. I know that I might freak out a bit less if it happens again. I lost a night of sleep over this. I just like having a possible explanation for what happenned.

Morel3etterness, I don't see how I was rude to you? I thank you for your concern, but Quinn is fine now.

I know that my sax bothered her. She did come out and sat in her litterbox while I was playing. It was the first time I played in the living room instead of my bedroom. She also came out and wheeled around the first few times I vaccuumed the living room after I got her. I never interpreted this as a bad thing, just that she had been woken up by a scary sound and couldn't just stay in her hiding, and needed to know what was going on and if she was in danger.

I don't think I should stop doing those things? I mean sure, I'll keep the sax to the bedroom as much as I can, but I still need to vacuum. Besides, after a few times she stopped coming out when I vaccumed. I took it that she now recognises the sound as something that while bothersome, isn't dangerous. I'm pretty sure it still wakes her up and she probably doesn't enjoy the sound either, but it doesn't freak her out anymore than the TV or my voice (or the extremely loud upstairs neighbors) do.

I still don't think the sax alone is a good explanation for the overnight freakout.

Nancy, I did check her up the next day when I washed her and she didn't look injured in any way. The turned over Quill was something that came to mind since it looked like she freaked out while I was handling her.

Maybe the freakout was a combination of several things that bothered her, who knows. Maybe the weather wouldn't have scared her that much if I hadn't woken her up with a loud instrument than later on put her on my knees.

KathyS, thanks for the idea. I'm in Canada though, but I did check the government's meteo archives. It seems they don't keep barometric pressure. Oh well. If it does happen again I'll be sure to take notes.


I'm just happy to have another explanation for this event than "Oh god she's hurt/sick". This episode messed up a night of sleep and a day of work for me. I think I'll be able to handle it without freaking out worse than she does if it happens again.