[Kalandra]

Bacterial and fungal infections can also cause quill loss and scratching. With those additional symptoms could be thinning of the quill coat, flaky skin, pustules around quills, crusty build up (slight or extreme) in fur or on quills. However I have seen it just be quill loss.

Most likely you are dealing with quilling which can be irritating to them but is a normal process.

You mentioned using oil for dry skin, how dry is his skin? How flaky? Large flakes?

I'd cut with the oil treatments until you get a better idea of what is happening. Oil treatments can hide symptoms, or cause conditions to become worse (for example bacterial infections).

Also, think about his scratching, does it sound frantic or a long slow scratch? Frantic (get it off me!) type sound is a problem. A long slow scratch could be a hedgehog that is just rearranging their quills.

 

[Kalandra]

Revolution works very quickly usually, so if he has had a treatment or two, its unlikely to still be mites. As mentioned before check for new quill growth. If you see what looks like a quill thats been cut in half and glued to their skin, thats a quill half grown in.

Looking at your pictures his quill coat looks thick and even. I'd continue to monitor for new quills poking through. If he is quilling you should see new quills.

Monitor for thinning or bald areas. A normal quilling will not cause bald spots.

Quilling can cause flakey skin, but most things that irritate their skin does.

Look at the base of quills closely for build up or pustules.

And yes, exotic vets are expensive. If I come out with a bill under $100 I usually ask what they forgot. These little ones are fairly healthy. But when they do get sick its expensive. Its something we have to be prepared for when we adopt them.

If you do go to the vet again. Get a skin scraping done. Have them check for mites again, and if you start to see other symptoms have them culture the skin scraping.