# Mites? Just Quilling?



## hedgie hedgie hedgie (Aug 15, 2011)

Hey there folks,

I posted on the Chins and Hedgies forum, but wanted to post here to get some more thoughts.

Violet has developed a strange spot next to her eye. I will post pics, but from the descriptions I've read elsewhere, it seems to be a symptom of mites. She also happens to be quilling -- you can see from the picture that she has new quills coming through, and also is shedding her old quills. There ARE balls on the end of each quill, so she is not shedding them due to mites. The spot near her eye can be described as reddish-yellowish, and somewhat crusty from what I can tell. We tried rubbing her with a black t-shirt to check for mites but did not see anything moving, just a little debris and very slight dandruff. We have not caught her scratching at all, so mites do not seem obvious; hopefully someone with experience will be able to tell me. We use Yesterday's News for litter, and a fleece cage liner in her C&C cage. We just brought Violet home last weekend from the breeder. She is 7 or 8 weeks old.

It may be entirely possible that she just got a rash or a bump on her head at the same time as she started quilling, as she does not necessarily posses many symptoms of mites. Here are the pics, and we are looking forward to seeing some responses. Thanks in advance 









The bump is just above her eye, and she also has two slight anomalies on her nose (left from her eye) and on her cheek (below her eye) which may or may not be related.









Here you can see some new quills poking through on her back.


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## moothecow (Jun 4, 2011)

Just a head up, the little ball on the end of the quill isn't always enough to be sure there are no mites. When I first got Misha, he was shedding quills that all had the little ball on the end... but he had a bad mite infestation. 

Is Violet scratching? I found that to be the big difference between mites or no mites. Right now 
Misha is quilling, but I've yet to see him scratch. However, when he had mites, he was scratching himself all the time. 

Not sure what the spot next to her eye is... maybe others with more experience will weigh in


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## hedgie hedgie hedgie (Aug 15, 2011)

We haven't noticed excessive scratching, or any scratching for that matter.


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## Demi (Sep 30, 2013)

My hedgehog had quills growing in, yet she was also scratching and she turned out to have mites. Just don't rule it out because you see new quills growing.


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