# Deafness



## khild148 (Nov 29, 2012)

I have a 8 week old, Pinto hedgie. He has a completely white head with chocolate on his back and red eyes. He is my first hedgie, so I don't know if this is typical for them, but he doesn't seem to react to noise. I am wondering if he could be deaf? Does anyone else have any experience with this?


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## hannahhedgie (Mar 5, 2013)

I have an 8 week old hedgie who also doesn't react to noise, so I'm curious to find if anyone knows whether this may be a sign of deafness. I noticed when she didn't seem to react in the least to background noise or even my sister dropping things on the floor noisily, so I tested by clapping behind her. Nothing!!


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## LizardGirl (Aug 25, 2008)

Pinto faced hedgehogs aren't like some other animals that have deafness associated with them, to clear that up first off, just in case that was a concern. 

Is your hedgie just sweet and relaxed in general? Very sweet ones will hardly flinch when they hear things. It's hard to test for deafness in hedgehogs because so many noises make vibrations that they can pick up and respond to that make it look like they "heard" it. Before trying too hard to determine your hedgie's hearing abilities, just observe his overall behavior and see if he seems to act abnormally from what you'd expect. If he's totally calm whether he's being handled, there are sounds, things are in his face, etc, he probably just is well socialized. That's most likely. If he reacts normally to visual stimuli (huffing, visor quills down) but doesn't respond at all to sound though, he may have a problem.


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