# Thoughts of a Sandbox



## nazka2002

Hi,

So my hedghog loves to dig. He digs in blankets and his bedding and cant get enought. I was thinking of adding a Sandbox to his cage but Ive heard mix reviews about this.

What are your thoughts on this?

Tim


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## Lilysmommy

I think the sand would be really messy, but I suppose you could do it. Just make sure that if you do do it, you bake the sand in the oven for a couple of hours on like, 300 degrees or something, to make sure you kill any parasites.


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## nazka2002

yeah

well im designing a new cage for my hedggie which will have rooms seprated and so on (my dad builds houses so its a litle project during the winter lol) and i would buy the sand from a petshop, u can buy sand pretreated and so on.

thx for the reply!


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## Sonic

Also, If you don't want to clean up sand every day or if you are scared about mites, you can cut up LOTS of fleece blankets and put them in a big box. I bet that would give your hedgie hours of awesome digging.


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## Immortalia

Even preheated sand you should still cook in the oven. It's like buying mite infested wood shavings that are supposed to be "mite free". It's just better to be safe. 

I'd worry about the sand getting into hard to clean places, especially for males. It'd also be possible for the sand to get stuck to some of the flakey skin that's on their backs when it's dry. Also, the sand would dry their already dry skin even more, so that's something to think about too. And what if they start using it as a litter box? And I agree that it'd be a messy process, with many potential baths needed, and more dry skin.


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## BabyHedges

Hi! Good question! I’ve often wondered this a lot too.
What I found from research is that North America doesn’t typically do sand boxes for hedgehogs but a lot of other countries like the UK do.
When I researched hedgehogs in the wild and watched lots of videos on them in the wild from national geographic and other places that follow animals in their natural habitats I found that hedgehogs LOVE to dig in dirt and sand.

so knowing this - helped me to feel confident that he could have a sandbox because hedgehogs in the wild aren’t dying from blocked pee holes. They normally die from predators or during hibernation if they don’t have enough body fat.

I bought kids play sand from Canadian tire and took it home and washed it in a big plastic bin with hot water and vinegar several times until the water was clear and sand was clean from dust and everything else.

then I laid it out on a cookie sheet and baked at 400F for about an hour or more. Carefully moving it around in the oven to make sure everything was exposed to the heat.

Then let it cool down and I scooped out a small amount into a smaller lower flat type plastic food storage container and that’s what goes in his cage.

I don’t always have it in his cage because I do still worry about the blockage thing but the sand doesn’t clump or stick to him, I’ve seen him play in it lots and it doesn’t stick to him like cat litter does. It’s also not super fine, it’s like regular soft sand so it’s a little bigger than some other sand I have seen and no dust at all which is perfect. 

So sometimes I just bring it out for playtime on the floor in his play pen but he I know he LOVES his sandbox and when it’s in his cage as he is ALWAYS rolling around in it and playing in it. Digging like crazy and acting like a psycho haha 😂

One thing I never read but have discovered upon this experience - it has helped his dry skin and quilling process. My theory on this is that the sand is exfoliating his skin because it’s abrasive and scratching off the dry flaky stuff. It’s also helping to remove the baby quills too as I always find baby quills in his sandbox. So it probably feels really good and scratchy for him when he’s rolling in it. Kind of like exfoliating our own skin.

The last few days now I have noticed his skin looks so much better, he’s scratching way less and is waaay less grumpy. He comes out a lot more at night time when his sand box is in there, so if it helps this quilling process and him feel better - then I keep it in his cage for a few nights till I give him a foot bath or regular bath, then I remove it for a couple days cuz I don’t want him to have it stick to him at all.

He doesn’t poop or pee in his sandbox eitherso that’s nice cuz he usually poops in his litter box that has paper pellets under his wheel.

It does make a mess of the cage, but it’s not as bad as I thought it would be. It’s usually just outside the sandbox near the one side of his cage. His other side where his bed is usually doesn’t have sand over there. Everyday when I clean his cage I just take out the fleece liner on the bottom and shake it off outside or replace it with a new liner but it’s not that bad to clean up. Sometimes I even just vacume it out if it’s just a few places around the box.

This is just my personal experience because he was hurting bad and super grumpyfrom quilling and had super dry skin that he was itching All the time. The oatmeal baths helped a bit but I can’t do that everyday or that often because it dries the skin out more it seems so I did a ton of research to see what else I could do and I found people saying sandboxes were a source of enrichment so I thought I’d try it out to make him happier during this process. And little did I know - it would help his dry skin and help remove the baby quills.

Last night was the first time in a couple weeks now that he wasn’t scratching like crazy and was super perky and happy. Wasn’t huffing at me as much and liked to be picked up again and held.

So I’m not saying this is for everyone- as others mentioned it is messy - and the sand can be problematic and unsanitary….. but if you take the right pre-cautions it could be something he really enjoys. And maybe it’s just at play time when you can monitor him but I would try it out and see how it goes! My guy goes nuts when he realizes his sandbox is back in his cage lol

when it’s not in there - I see him searching for it every time he wakes up and it makes me sad when it’s not in there and I have to watch him look for it - but it’s only because I’m scared he will get something stuck in his pee hole so anytime he gets wet - sand comes out for a couple days to be safe and to make sure he’s completely dry everywhere before re-adding it to the cage.


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