# Eating Less, but No Other Symptoms



## JaredM (Apr 11, 2015)

Hello everyone,

I hoped that I would never have to post a health thread, but I'm getting pretty worried about my baby. I realize this is a bit long, but I want to provide as much detail as possible. Please ask any questions. First, the standard Q/A:

- Flidais is about to turn 7 months old, she turned 6 months old on January 19th.
- I have owned her since September 6th, so 5 Months 1 Week (Picked her up at 7 weeks old).
- There have been changes around this time, which I will elaborate on below.
- Cage temperature 76 - 80 (4x2 C&C with two 150W CHEs, room temp is 70-76 usually on the higher end of that)
- Light schedule 9am - 9pm, often later with room lights on because I am a college student. As long as I just have a bedside light and/or light from my laptop, she's not bothered. The only thing that she has ever been particularly light sensitive about is wheeling (must be no light sources on).

So a bit of background first, I have a big hedgie (555g) who is a little overweight (she started looking a little pudgy once she hit 500g. I realized it was my fault because I put way too much food in her bowl each night, so she ate all the tasty, higher fat pieces in her mix first and filled up on those. So, on January 1st, I started measuring her food by weighing it to figure out how much she eats and then put just a little more than that in each night. That worked great, as she immediately stopped gaining weight. At this point, she was eating about 12g of food per night. For those of you who count kibble, I weighed her food and that's about 80 pieces. Because I have been having dry skin and I figure Flidais would also be helped by an increase in humidity (my room was in the low 30s relative humidity), I got a humidifier and a HEPA air purifier to keep things fresh since I can't really vent the room in winter. Humidity is now up to mid 40s in the room, and high 30s in her cage (the CHEs dry it out a bit more). Those were both turned on January 21st. Because the air purifier works for white noise, I unplugged the aquarium air pump/air stone that I had been running 24/7 for months (there's nothing but water in my aquarium and this was fantastic at blocking out noises at night (a lot of other college students live on my street)). The only other change that I have made is the addition of a small sand box (cake baking tray inside her igloo filled with crushed walnut shells) that I decided to experiment with after doing a lot of research into German vs. American ways of keeping hedgehogs, particularly threads on here. Prior to a major change I was a bio student with a particular interest in behavior, so I felt confident with cautiously experimenting. She loved digging in it and was even sleeping in it some nights.

So now onto the issues, there have been two things. The first occurred after getting the humidifier and air purifier, but I'm not sure of the exact date (a few days later). I woke up to her making an odd noise in her sleep and when I woke her up, her breathing sounded a little different, possibly a slight wheezing to it. The first noise I did some research on and appears to have just been snoring. I found some videos and it was exactly the same noise. The breathing noise had a slight buzzing sound to it (like mild wheezing). I took her out and she was licking her nose a lot. It looked a little wetter than normal, but was not running and had no mucous. I was worried that she might have a URI, but she did not sneeze once all day, so I decided to wait 24 hours and closely monitor her. The next day she had improved a bit and still hadn't sneezed at all, so I decided to wait 24 hours again. I also tried to get a look up her nose, worried that a piece of walnut shell had gotten up there, but didn't have much luck. I had removed the "sand" box the day prior after I heard the noises because I was worried that it was the cause. She did not act like she was in pain at all and running my finger along her nose produced no reaction, so I concluding that there couldn't be anything up inside it. The next she was no longer licking and her nose felt normal again and breathing sounded fine. I believe it was just wetter because she was licking it, but I never found a cause for her licking or change in noise (the noise change was subtle, so I wasn't too worried about it).

Then, I noticed a trend in her eating habits because her poops were smaller than usual. She had slowly been eating less and less over the course of about a month. This started prior to the humidifier/air purifier addition, so those are not the cause. I have attached a screen shot of the trend. Unfortunately, it started just after I had begun weighing her food, so I don't really have any historical data to compare it too. As I said, she was eating around 12g of kibble per night initially, but she slowly declined down to 3-4g and has maintained that for the past two weeks. A couple of things coincide with this, as I said she reached 6 months old on January 19th, so I have expected some decline around now being that she is reaching adulthood, but I know it should not be that drastic. Her food mix, however is the same age. I froze it in 1/2 lb. bags, but it is about 6 months old, so I know it is going stale. I excitedly hoped this was the cause, since searching a few posts on here came up with numerous cases of hedgehogs gradually eating less as their food went stale then returning to normal as soon as fresh bags were purchased. I can't do a full mix again until I get paid on Wednesday, but I got a fresh bag of Natural Balance L.I.D. Green Pea and Duck (part of her mix) and have given her that exclusively the last two nights. She's very easy going, never had green poops, and it was already part of her mix, so I figured that just giving that would be fine. Unfortunately, she has had no change. She ate 3g the first night and barely anything last night. I did her nails yesterday though, so I gave her lots of mealies and darkling beetles. I'm not concerned about her eating less than she has been last night because she typically eats noticeably less kibble when she's had treats.

She has had a slight change in behavior. She is the sweetest, snuggliest little hedgehog and normally when I take her out, she's happy to sleep in her snuggle sack or her fleece tunnel. The past few weeks she has flat out refused the snuggle sack and the past couple days has not wanted to go into the fleece tunnel (I haven't changed anything with either of them). Suddenly yesterday, she decided she liked her snuggle sack again and she's sleeping in it on my lap right now. Other than that, no behavioral changes except for eating less. About a week ago, I decided maybe it was constipation because of the change in poop size, so I gave her organic sweet potato baby food for three nights in addition to her kibble. She ate it, but it did not change anything. She's always been a lazy hog, definitely a cuddler not an explorer, but she loves treats, especially mealworms, aliens, and their beetles. As soon as she has one, she's frantically running around looking for more. There has been no change at all with this. She vacuums them down and runs around like normal. I feed them sparingly because of her weight, but she usually gets a few every few days and also extras when she has to have a bath or nails trimmed.

I've checked her over again and again and she shows no signs of being unhealthy. Despite eating 1/4 what she had been, she has not lost any weight, which is perplexing me. I suspect she's running around a bit less since she's eating less and that may be compensating for it. She used to get up and eat for 30 minutes non-stop, usually around 4-5g of kibble in the first session and would periodically get up and do so more throughout the night. Since she started eating less, she'll eat a little bit when she gets up at first, but she seems to be eating slower and not chewing as hard because she's always loudly crunched away before. I haven't been able to get a good look at her mouth, so I cannot rule out dental issues. Everything points to her food going stale, but that obviously isn't it since the fresh food has made no difference. I know has definitely gone stale because it smells MUCH less strongly than the new bag and my friend's hedgehog on the same mix has also been slowly eating less (he has been completely normal otherwise, and got the fresh food last night).

One additionally thing, I considered an adult quilling, but I haven't found any dropped quills, so I have ruled that out.

I am going to try to schedule a vet appointment for Thursday. Thankfully one of the local vets has a hedgehog herself, so I have high hopes for quality care, but until then I'd love to hear any thoughts that you might have and any advice at all. If there's anything I might have missed or not described well, please ask me. I really want to get this figured out because I'm starting to really worry now that she's on fresh food and that hasn't changed anything.


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## Kalandra (Aug 25, 2008)

Tried to read through all that, and had trouble as I kept getting interrupted. I know you said you tried buying a bag of new food and that didn't improve her appetite. Have you tried wet food or adding just a little water to her kibble? If she would eat the kibble when its softer, it would further indicate that a veterinary visit to have her mouth examined is needed.

How long have you had her? And have you always kept the temp up that high?


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## JaredM (Apr 11, 2015)

The only wet food I have tried is baby food, but I don't know how much she ate because I put it in her bowl and it was dried by morning. She definitely ate some because I saw her eat a little when I put it in and there were nose/licking marks in it in the morning. She seemed to like it.

How wet should I make her kibble? That's a really good idea.

I have had her a little over 5 months. Most of her cage remains steadily 76-78, with 80 occasionally right between her two CHEs when they're on and my room temperature is on the higher end (76ish). I originally had it more 74-77, but found that she would run a little more when I bumped it up a degree or two. I changed that months ago, so probably in October or November.


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## Kalandra (Aug 25, 2008)

I'd start with just a little water. I usually try somewhere between 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon to 12 grams food. Just enough to make it a little easier to crunch. Then bump up more if there seems to be more interest and schedule a visit to have her mouth examined.

I'd also go ahead and refresh all of the food. If that doesn't fix her appetite its time for a veterinary visit.


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## Soyala_Amaya (Aug 1, 2011)

Something to be concerned with an extremely obese hog is diabetes or thyroid issues. I just had the Pancake tested today for just these reasons.


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## JaredM (Apr 11, 2015)

She's definitely not obese, she can roll up fully and doesn't have the ridge of fat on her back. She is a little pudgy though, mostly around the tops of her legs. I didn't realize those could be issues for hedgies, so that's definitely some extra motivation to help her lose a few grams!

I'll try adding some water to her kibble tonight.


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## JaredM (Apr 11, 2015)

I am wondering if she maybe doesn't like Natural Balance as much or it's just a little too big for her. She was running around earlier looking for food while I prepped it with water for tonight and now that it's in her cage, she isn't super interested. She's eating some, but in comparison, I mixed it about 50/50 with her old mix last night and she ate most of that, leaving a lot of the NB. The bag says it's good until August 2016 so it isn't that, and as far as I can tell, the recipe has not changed.

The kibbles are quite a bit larger than her others in her old mix (Blue Buffalo Weight Control (I will not be reusing that one) and Castor Pollux Organix), so maybe she is having some trouble with them. She's eating it right now, but seems a little hesitant. She just went back to checking all of her usual treat spots. I will try crushing it tomorrow night to see if that helps. New food is on order, but it won't be in until next week.


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## MorgansPets (Feb 21, 2016)

If you are seeing no other symptoms yourself, try getting a cheap night vision camera. Attach it somewhere that gives a nice overview of the cage. At the end of every week, upload it to your computer (get some sort of video editor). Insert the video footage into your editor. Speed it up a bit and watch it, just to make sure no other unusual behavior is occurring in your hedgehog.


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## JaredM (Apr 11, 2015)

I've been wanting to do that for months out of curiosity just to see what she does at night (mostly to observe her wheeling habits, but also what her preferred times to be awake are), but I haven't found anything reasonably priced. When I have some extra money I'm going to make my own motion activated system with multiple IR cameras, but that probably won't be until this summer.

Just an update: Wetting the kibble did not seem to make a difference in how much she ate, but I do like how it's easier for her. I will definitely be crushing her new mix and possibly adding a little water regularly depending on the size I can get it down to. Dry kibble just seems so hard for their teeth. I realized that I had zero time to take her to the vet on Thursday, but since she has been completely stable in her new eating habits for about 3 weeks now and otherwise seems perfectly fine, I'm less worried than before. If anything were to suddenly change, I'm ready to take her to the 24/7 clinic (highly regarded university vet school ~15 minutes away) at a moment's notice, but she's been fine so far.

She has gone back to liking her snuggle sack and it seems to help if I leave it in her cage under one of the CHEs, so it's nice and warm for her when I take her out. I have dropped my room (70 - 75) and cage (75 - 79) temperatures slightly to experiment, but no real change, although I'm much more comfortable than I was at 74-76, so at least one of us benefited! 

She did eat 6g one night, but most have been 4g. Poop sizes have returned to normal for whatever reason. I've tried changing her cage up a bit by moving her food and water farther away from the CHEs in the hopes that maybe the kibble was drying out extra since it's winter time, but that has also made no difference. I haven't run the humidifier in a while, but once again no difference caused by this. My only guess at this point is that she's just grown up and doesn't feel the urge to eat as much since she isn't much of a runner and doesn't need a ton of calories.

Ironically, she had a monster wheeling night (for her) last night and ran 26 minutes. She hasn't run that long since early December (she only does it once every month or two). I realize for most hedgehogs that's nothing, but her average is 5 minutes per night and it varies nightly between 0 - 10. I've tried everything and I've watched her wheel many times to check angle, etc. She's just one of those rare hedgehogs who doesn't really care for wheels. Contrarily, my friend's hedgehog ran circles in his cage for 3 hours straight when I babysat him a few months back before he had a wheel, which while adorable kept me up until 3am and prompted me to give him one the next night (he has trouble keeping weight on, but since he was running for hours anyways without it, I figured I might as well give him a less destructive and more entertaining way to do it) When I put it in, I had my room lights fully on still, but he loved it so much that he hopped right up and started running his little heart out.)

I'm still waiting for the rest of her food for the new mix to come in. It was supposed to arrive Tuesday, but I haven't gotten a call from the pet store yet. I might pop in tomorrow and see what the status is if they don't call by then.


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