# Food Dish Problems



## comrad545 (Sep 30, 2013)

Hey guys this feels like a stupid question but i cant seem to find the answer on any hedgehog forums. My hedgehog keeps filling the food dish with the wood shavings I gave for its bedding. Im wondering if this is like some kind of problem. Does it maybe not like the smell of the food and its trying to cover the smell with the wood shavings (pine). Also if it covers the food dish will it be able to find the food? I get worried so when i see this i empty the whole dish and put in a new stack of food. (I feed it high quality puppy food, beef flavor). Sorry I'm still a newbie to this hedgehog owner thing and wondering if this should be something i should be worried about.

P.S I'm switching to fleece in a couple of weeks because numerous forums and sites reccommend it.


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## Lilysmommy (Jan 7, 2009)

That is one of the problems with shavings & bowls, especially water bowls. He might just be digging too close to the bowl & getting them in it. How big is your bowl? Maybe a bigger one would be harder to fill with shavings, or at least leave some food uncovered so he could still eat. I'm sure he would still be able to get to his food if he wanted it, but there's also a bit of risk that he might accidentally eat some pieces of shavings...not sure how likely that is, but wouldn't be a great thing either. Perhaps you could get a small piece of fleece or something & put it over the shavings, under the food bowl and see if it helps?


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## SugarCoatedSam (Sep 24, 2013)

My hedgehog did this all, I now use fleece but the solution I used before was to put only a fine coating of saw dust in the bottom literally just enough to cover the bottom of his cage.


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## comrad545 (Sep 30, 2013)

Lilysmommy said:


> That is one of the problems with shavings & bowls, especially water bowls. He might just be digging too close to the bowl & getting them in it. How big is your bowl? Maybe a bigger one would be harder to fill with shavings, or at least leave some food uncovered so he could still eat. I'm sure he would still be able to get to his food if he wanted it, but there's also a bit of risk that he might accidentally eat some pieces of shavings...not sure how likely that is, but wouldn't be a great thing either. Perhaps you could get a small piece of fleece or something & put it over the shavings, under the food bowl and see if it helps?


Hmmm yeah a bigger bowl might help! will try later  my little guy moves the bowl around a lot too. Most of the time its right in front of his igloo (full of the shavings). Im thinking of getting the ones for puppies, the one with rubber underneath.


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