# Best treat to get Hedgie to take medicine?



## toxichic (Jun 27, 2017)

Hello-

We are new hedgehog owners, having recently adopted a hog from an acquaintance that after 2.5 years felt they were not providing the best care. 

When he arrived and finally unrolled enough to walk around a little we discovered his back foot was in rough shape. Our vet was able to help out and get the infected foot cleaned up, but he is missing some toes and the toes that he has we can hopefully save. Which brings us to...antibiotics.

This guy has not been held a lot recently and while we are working on it, we're only 3-4 days into doing any bonding. Considering he's totally uprooted into a new place, injured and scared from the vet visit there's not really a chance we are going to be dropping this medicine into his mouth. 

So what kind of recommendations do you have for IRRESISTIBLE hedgehog treats? The medicine is liquid and we do not have to give a lot but we want to ensure he injests it. We tried some sweet potato baby food with medicine in it on top of his Spike's Delight but he just rolled it to the side and ate only a few kibbles. I put more out today with no kibbles, just baby food and am hoping for the best. With the stress and anesthesia medicine I am sure his appetite may be down too, poor guy.

Any suggestions you experts have on giving medicine or treats that no hedgie can reasonably refuse...we would really appreciate it.


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## nikki (Aug 28, 2008)

The best way is to use a syringe so you know he's getting the full dose. In the past I have used either chicken baby food or Hills A/D, which you can get from the vet. I would suck up a bit of the food, then suck up the dose of antibiotic and then some more of the food. This way they get the yummy food at the beginning and end and are less likely to taste the medicine.


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## Yukidama's mama (Apr 4, 2017)

Aww poor little guy, sounds like he's not had an easy time but I'm glad he's now found himself in better hands with people who want to help him and take better care of him now ♡

All hogs are different, my boy is pretty picky when it comes to food but one thing he can't resist is superworms! He goes crazy for them! So I suggest trying superworms or mealworms if this is easier to get hold of but live is best. Supers are bigger and I guess more juicer, without being too gross about it! ><

If he likes his kibble, what I'd suggest (and this is what I do every night in order to feed my boy up as he struggles to keep weight on) is soak his kibble for 10 mins or so in a bowl, chop up a Superworm in like 6 or so pieces in a small dish (discard the head in the bin, as apparently it can bite still!) add one or so pieces and some of the guts to the kibble mixture in the bowl) and mix until it is a soggy biscuit consistency, then add your liquid medicine and mix again, then pour over the chopped up Superworm in small dish and serve! ^^. My guy quite likes his mixture watery, so you might have to play around with it to see what your hog likes, maybe he'd prefer it less watery if he isn't used to it and probably best with medicine not to use too much water as may dilute it? But my guy loves this mix, he'd only eat it though, if it has the Superworm in it so I know for sure this is the key ingredient lol 

Anways, worth a try! You could just coat the worms in the liquid but mixing it all with a little bit of water and making a mix might do the trick and hide the taste of medicine better  
Fingers cross he likes insects! >< otherwise some fruit that are sometimes popular with some hogs are watermelon, apple etc or could try cooked chicken? (I've not had any luck with anything except supers so far!)

Good luck and hope he recovers & settles in his new home soon! ♡


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## nikki (Aug 28, 2008)

The problem with putting medication into food is that there is no guarantee that they will eat it all and then they won't get the full dose. Syringe feeding it is the best way to ensure they get the full dose.


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## Yukidama's mama (Apr 4, 2017)

...also just to add, I'm no hedgie expert btw! >< and luckily haven't had to give my guy any medicine so far (only had him for 3 months ^^) so see if there's others on here that have experience feeding medicine ~ I just saw no one had got back to you >< so wanted to try and help you!  Ive had experience feeding medicine to pet dogs though, just need to disguise the taste, like you suggest with their favourite treat and if anything that is one thing I've learnt about my hog so far, with his fussiness and eating issues! ><


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## Yukidama's mama (Apr 4, 2017)

Ok thanks Nikki for adding in on that  ~ when I said to use a small dish I meant to feed from the lap outside the cage (not to just put in the cage for food over night) so could still monitor food intake to ensure it was all eaten but I agree syringe feed would be best. As I just added I haven't needed to do this yet so glad you added in! ^^

The mixture I was talking about that I feed my boy every night with the super is extra to the kibble he then gets in his cage over night. He generally eats it all from the small dish from my lap during the evening and what ever is leftover gets thrown in the bin. But for toxichic you'd want to ensure he ate it all since it has the medicine in it so syringe it to him instead


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## nikki (Aug 28, 2008)

When it comes to medical advice please be careful when answering when you have no experience on the subject. It's better to not give advice rather than giving wrong or dangerous advice.


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## Yukidama's mama (Apr 4, 2017)

I understand and will be careful in future ~ it was why I quickly wrote back to add that I am a new owner and don't have experience giving medicine to my hedgie, as I forgot to write it in my first reply and then realised (I do normally write this). She was asking for help with irresistible treats so this was what I was trying to help with and is what I would do to get my hedgie to take the medicine to cause minimum stress (and is what I've done with my dogs, so I'm not completely clueless when administering medicine to pets) but I of course understand your concern and won't comment in future. 

Would syringe feeding the medicine straight not be a risk that the hog will just spit it out from the taste? And then lead to issues of not knowing how much it has swallowed of the dose?


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## Vietphoo (Mar 19, 2017)

toxichic said:


> Hello-
> 
> We are new hedgehog owners, having recently adopted a hog from an acquaintance that after 2.5 years felt they were not providing the best care.
> 
> ...


Like Nikki said, syringe feeding is the best method. I had the same problem when I first got my hedgehog, having adopted him from craigslist. The method I used to get my hedgehog to take his meds is to have him on his back balled up with just his head out on soft fleece. And squirt just a tiny bit on the side of his mouth. This causes him to open his mouth to lick it. Once that happens you can easily get him to take the rest of the meds. It might take a couple of tries at First, but you can practice with water. I hope this helps!


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## nikki (Aug 28, 2008)

Yukidama's mama said:


> I understand and will be careful in future ~ it was why I quickly wrote back to add that I am a new owner and don't have experience giving medicine to my hedgie, as I forgot to write it in my first reply and then realised (I do normally write this). She was asking for help with irresistible treats so this was what I was trying to help with and is what I would do to get my hedgie to take the medicine to cause minimum stress (and is what I've done with my dogs, so I'm not completely clueless when administering medicine to pets) but I of course understand your concern and won't comment in future.
> 
> Would syringe feeding the medicine straight not be a risk that the hog will just spit it out from the taste? And then lead to issues of not knowing how much it has swallowed of the dose?


This is why I said to suck up food first and again after drawing up the medication. Also it's easier to see how much they spit out than try to figure out how much they may or may not have gotten in food.

Dogs are completely different, usually they will always like a treat they have liked in the past, with hedgehogs that can change from day to day. There are no "irresistible treats" when it come to hedgehogs, they are all so different.


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