# Help! 5/6 yr. old hedgie - Not eating, barely drinking



## Gibbz (Jan 17, 2011)

I've had my hedgie on the same food since shortly after switching when I first got him. I introduced some crushed up dog food kibble, a brand I've researched and is ok for hedgies. (Wellness brand, toy breed kibble) Since introducing some kibble to his regular food - He now barely eats at all his reg. and has lost weight.

He doesn't have energy to run on his wheel because of the lack of eating (I think) and has just been sleeping. He barely gets up for water because he isn't eating or exercising much. Should I start feeding him more dog kibble? Is the Wellness brand ok to be feeding him as reg. food? I've cut it out completely, but he still hasn't gone back to eating his reg. food so I'm very worried. 

Please help! It's been a couple days over a week and I am very worried because of his weight loss and lack of hydration.


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## Pip-Squeak the Hedgie (Mar 20, 2016)

check the temp in his cage... he could be trying to hibernate, he most likely is if his stomach is cold and he is curled up in a ball and unable to uncurl. or maybe its mites? I would take him to the vet right away if its not hibernation for sure. also, how quickly did you switch his food? did you mix it with the old one at all? or did you just switch it right away?


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## Artemis-Ichiro (Jan 22, 2016)

You need to start syringe feeding now. Search in the forum and you'll find out how but if they are not eating, they go down fast and take him to the vet.


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## Gibbz (Jan 17, 2011)

I didn't take away his regular food when I introduced the new kibble. I just put some in with his regular food. Also, our furnace conked out for about a week.. He had blankets and a heater on his cage. It's been working again for the past couple days - Do you think that's what could be causing this? 

Cold temp & he doesn't like his food?
There aren't any exotic animal vets around me or any cities I live by, so heading to a vet isn't a viable option.


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## Gibbz (Jan 17, 2011)

I found a vet on the vetrinary listings, with no avail on a google search. I recently just resigned from my job due to harassment and have no income at the moment - Please give advice if you have been in a similar situation w/ your hoglette. If you have any questions regarding his condition please ask and I will answer ASAP.


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## Lilysmommy (Jan 7, 2009)

Okay, here's what you need to do today:

1) Make sure he's warm. Check his belly, it should feel warm to you.

2) If his belly is cool, you need to warm him up. My preferred method is against my body, under a shirt. You can also use a heating pad set on low. He needs to be warmed up until his belly is warm and he's moving around again. After that, he needs to be kept a little warmer than usual for a couple weeks to ensure he doesn't attempt hibernation again.

3) If he's already warm, you need to syringe feed ASAP. Here's our sticky with more info on that - http://www.hedgehogcentral.com/foru...yringing-tutorial-syringe-feeding-sticky.html Aim to get 24-30ml in him in a day right now. The general guideline is the number of ml he eats is how long you can wait until you feed him again - if he eats 4ml, you can wait four hours until the next feeding.

4) Switch his food back to 100% the food you had him on before. Give him just that tonight & see if he eats, especially after being syringe-fed to get some food into him. You can also leave him a bit of whatever you syringe-feed to him and see if he'll try that. Measure, weigh, or count the food you give him so you can see if he touches it at all - sometimes they eat just a couple bites, which can be too small to notice by eye, but is still more than no interest at all.

5) You'll need to continue to syringe feed him daily until he's eating on his own again. I would try to keep up the 24-30ml/day for at least a few days because it's been so long since he's eaten. He needs that food to start feeling better and get stronger again. Once he's doing better, you can start to decrease a little and see if he'll start to eat on his own again.

Now, some questions for you.

1) What kind of heater do you have on his cage? Does it give off any light?

2) Do you have a thermostat for the heater?

3) Do you have a thermometer in the cage? If so, what temperature is it at usually?

My guess is he stopped eating because he was being picky about the new food being added in, unless that was at the same time as the furnace stopping. Hedgehogs don't do well without food - if they stop eating, syringe-feeding should be started after 1-2 days of not eating. Please don't let him go so long without eating again, it's very dangerous for him since he's so small. Once they stop eating, they start feeling crummy and don't want to eat, so generally it goes into a downhill spiral. They need to be force-fed to get their appetite going again and keep their strength up until they start eating on their own again.

Now, about the heat. That could be affecting all of this as well. Hedgehogs need relatively stable temperatures and need to stay between 73-80F. It's usually recommended to stay within a 1-3 range somewhere in that broader range. Large temperature drops, even within the recommended range, can cause hibernation attempts. When the furnace went out, that could have caused problems for him, or if the heater wasn't keeping his cage the same temperature as what he's used to. If you don't have a thermometer, you need one to make sure the temp is staying where it needs to & staying relatively stable. You can get a digital thermometer relatively cheap at a store like Walmart if you're in the US/Canada. They should only be $5-10. They're more expensive at pet stores.

If your hedgehog starts recovering with the syringe-feeding and goes back to eating on his own once he has his old food back & is feeling better, you may not need a vet for this situation. However, vets are not optional for hedgehogs - you need to have someone you can go to. Hedgehogs are prone to various health issues that require vet care. If you can't provide it for him, that's very unfair to him. You can check the vet listings on the forum, and check again on google, etc. You may have to look around in a radius up to 2 or 3 hours away to see if you can find someone. Exotic vets are hard to come by. If you can't find one, start calling other vets and see if you can find anyone who sees pocket pets - guinea pigs, rabbits, hamsters, etc. While a vet with hedgehog experience is ideal, having a vet that is willing to work with you and do research to provide care for your hedgehog is better than no vet at all. If you honestly can't find a vet at all for your hedgehog, then it would be best for him if you could find him a home that does have that available to him. It's just not fair to him if you can't provide what he needs, and vet care is included in that.

Let me know if you have any more questions about what to do for him right now or in the near future. And let us know how he does with syringe-feeding and if he starts to regain energy. If he doesn't improve once he starts getting food in him, you may need a vet sooner than later, especially with as long as he's gone without food.


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