# How do you sleep with a hedgie in your room?



## Willow Tree (Nov 12, 2009)

This is serious! Bandit is a freak about his wheel and will not stop unless dead tired, or food in his bowl. I bought a new one, but it makes a squeaking noise - high pitched. I want to keep him in my room so I will bond with him and know when he needs his cage cleaned. 

How do you deal with the noise?
The stink?

Help!


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## krbshappy71 (Jul 17, 2009)

What kind of wheel? Are there any spots you can oil?

I have the Flying Saucer and it is quiet except the pitter patter of their feet.

Smell is a difficult one. I use baking soda box in the room. I wash the wheel daily and clean the poopies through the week, clean the cage thoroughly each week.


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## LarryT (May 12, 2009)

An air purifer in the room will help with the smell and my wheels are very quite
viewtopic.php?f=20&t=4844&start=0


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## Willow Tree (Nov 12, 2009)

krbshappy71 said:


> What kind of wheel? Are there any spots you can oil?
> 
> I have the Flying Saucer and it is quiet except the pitter patter of their feet.
> 
> Smell is a difficult one. I use baking soda box in the room. I wash the wheel daily and clean the poopies through the week, clean the cage thoroughly each week.


Bandit had a cake one, but broke it because he wheeled soooo much x.x Now he has a wired one, it's pretty quiet, I think the sounds are coming from the sides where it holds the wheel up.

I'm a weird girl, I like everything dead quiet so I can hear my fishtank; really quiet. The motor hums and it puts me to sleep. Bandit on the other hand does this -pitterpitterpitterpittereeeeeEEEeeeeEEEpitterpitterpitterpittereeeeEEEEEeeeeEEE!!- It's a combo of his old wheel and feet, lol!


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## LizardGirl (Aug 25, 2008)

The wire ones are horrible and very dangerous, please buy him a new one. I too would recommend a cake top style wheel like Larry makes. They are reasonably priced, safe, and will last a long time. They are virtually silent.

An air purifier will help though a hedgehog's cage shouldn't get so dirty to where it smells so bad as to keep you up. Maybe you need to clean more often?


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## FiaSpice (Jan 16, 2009)

I can't! I am so sensitive to noise, even with them sleeping in the living room, I have trouble to sleep sometimes.

I agree with LizardGirl, a wire wheel isn't safe at all.


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## Morel3etterness (Dec 5, 2009)

Hey I went through this with Egon when I first brought him home. He was 7 weeks old. Now hes close to 7 months old. He doesn't really smell much anymore since he doesn't poop as much anymore. I also moved him to the other side of my room, behind my computer so I don't smell him. I also put a fan on the circulate air and I keep my door open halfway.

When he was a baby I used to put two towels over the cage to take the smell down a bit. The smell dies down as they grow. Also make sure your using carefresh for litter.


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## Willow Tree (Nov 12, 2009)

Morel3etterness said:


> Hey I went through this with Egon when I first brought him home. He was 7 weeks old. Now hes close to 7 months old. He doesn't really smell much anymore since he doesn't poop as much anymore. I also moved him to the other side of my room, behind my computer so I don't smell him. I also put a fan on the circulate air and I keep my door open halfway.
> 
> When he was a baby I used to put two towels over the cage to take the smell down a bit. The smell dies down as they grow. Also make sure your using carefresh for litter.


Where can you get carefresh litter at?


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## Immortalia (Jan 24, 2009)

I think I got used to the smell :lol: 

However, the two of us have got things pretty well timed. 
My light timer turns off at 9pm, he comes out to do his thing. By the time I head back up to my room at around 11pm or 12am, he's already back in bed and resting for his next bout of exercise. Lately, I also use this time to take him out to cuddle, since he's a cuddler. 

If I leave him in his cage, I'll cover his cage with a piece of cloth, I have a small lamp by my bed while I'm online. Then at around 2am, I turn off the lights and head to bed. He'll come out again and I'll be falling asleep to the sound of his pitter patter of feet, and no poop smell yet. By the time he poops, I'm already asleep :lol: Though sometimes, he'll come out even when I'm still away, and I guess I really have just gotten used to the smell. (it's still dark in his part of the room whether I have light on or not)

I also have a litter pan filled with Purina Yesterday's News, and he's litter trained, so that cuts down on the smell too.


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## hedgielover (Oct 30, 2008)

LizardGirl said:


> ... a hedgehog's cage shouldn't get so dirty to where it smells so bad as to keep you up. Maybe you need to clean more often?


LOL it so will. I clean Quigley's cage everyday. His poop really smells when it's fresh. If I walk in the room at night it hits me like a brick wall. When we go to visit my parents the smell of fresh poop will sometimes wake me up. It will be bad enough that I have to get up and clean it out of the cage.


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## Kalandra (Aug 25, 2008)

Honestly, how do you people sleep with a hedgehog not in your room? Over the years I've had three times when I haven't had a hedgehog in my bedroom (due to death of a hedgehog). Of those times I think the longest I spent without a hedgehog was 3 months. I couldn't sleep. I'd wake up constantly from lack of noise in the room. Even now, if the quilled ones are sleeping at night instead of running and being active I wake up because something seems wrong. Usually I get up, check the temp in the room, check their tummy's, etc.

Is the poop smell really awful? If so, what foods are you feeding? Sometimes food can play a major part of the odor. Canned cat foods are an example of a food that can cause an absolutely awful smelling stool.


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## Free2Dream (Aug 10, 2009)

I actually LOVE hearing Annabelle wheeling at night... it puts me to sleep, and it makes me happy to know that she's enjoying some exercise. I also like to hear her crunching on her kibble, it's so cute! I have a comfort wheel that rattles a little, but nothing too noisy; I simply got used to it. I never noticed a smell. One of the things I love most about keeping hedgies as pets is that they don't seem to have that "small animal odor" that detracts me from rodents.


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## Kalandra (Aug 25, 2008)

I love the crunching sounds too, it always brings a smile with it as it means there is a happy little hedgehog in the room crunching away. I've actually learned to tell who is running or eating. Each have a different sound! Once in a very great while will one of them fool me, but not very often!


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## FaesMama (Mar 31, 2010)

I couldn't imagine keeping Fae anywhere else than our bedroom. :lol: Although she's a little noisy, if I didn't hear her I'd be so worried at night. 

You'll adjust to the noise if you decide to keep him in the room. We've grown to love her little noises. HedgePapa will shake me awake enough to say things like "She's eating!" or "She's in the tube!" (His favorite part of the HedgeCondo he built her, a vinyl dryer exhaust tube that she uses to get upstairs/downstairs. He thought she didn't like it for the first week, but now he beams whenever he knows she's exploring it.) 

We don't have much of a problem with smell, possibly because HedgePapa and I are on two very different work/school schedules so we do twice the cleaning. He cleans the nighttime mess at 5 am before leaving for his shift, I do the basic cleaning (liners, vacuuming, etc) before work/class, and whoever gets home first deals with the daytime mess. 

Also, a little fresh air really does wonders. Leave your door open for a bit, but monitor the cage temp. Maybe to cut back on your smell, clean when you wake up and get home. If we get off schedule during a hectic week and only clean once a day, you can definitely tell we have something small and poopy living in our bedroom.


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## nationofamanda (Jan 19, 2010)

have you considered ear plugs? i use them to tune out snoring when on family vacations.


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## Nancy (Aug 22, 2008)

I love having a hedgie or two or three in the bedroom. Prior to us giving the hedgies their own room, at one time we had 9. I knew by each wheel or sounds who was up and would wake up if someone didn't get up on time. I discovered each hedgie schedule. Once they moved, well actually they kept the room and we moved, I didn't sleep well for quite a while because I could no longer hear them. 

Now there are only rescues that live in the bedroom during their quarantine. Yes, the first night or two the wheels can be a bit annoying but I quickly get used to it. A gob of vasaline on either end of the shaft the wheel rides on will quiet it down. 

As for the smell, yes, fresh hedgie poop does smell but never has it been smelly enough to bother me. It's kind of like a fart. There for a minute and gone. :lol:


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## Immortalia (Jan 24, 2009)

Haha Nancy, you should get those baby monitors. That way, you can still hear them. :lol:


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## Nancy (Aug 22, 2008)

I do have baby monitors as well as an infrared camera that shows up on any tv. :lol:


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## kurai18 (Aug 31, 2009)

When I read this post yesterday I was all like "I have no problem sleeping with Pineapple in the room. Her poop doesn't stink and she's not loud at all. And the noises she makes are adorable!" 
and as if to prove me wrong she kept me awake all night long last night.
It was like she was doing some major construction work on her cage.. For some reason she was determined to push her plastic tunnel under her wheel which took about 30 minutes of scuffling and then she gleefully proceeded to run on her wheel! Of course the bottom of the wheel scraped against the tunnel and made squeaky rattling noises for an hour. Then she scuffled and burrowed around and overturned all her blankets, pushed the tunnel under the blankets to make an underground tunnel, and finally went to bed. 
When I turned on the lights this morning to check the damage, it was horrifying. It looked like her cage was hit by a hurricane lol. I had to gingerly touch every lump to see if she was in there.. And now I'm at work... so sleepy....


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## allears.fan (Mar 20, 2010)

I got one of those comfort wheels (12") and boy is it noisy!
It rattles most of the time. It wakes me up a little but i kind of just ignore it sometimes too. 
but should it rattle?


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## Lilysmommy (Jan 7, 2009)

At Kurai: :lol: It's amazing how loud they can be sometimes, when they're redecorating! Lily does that sometimes too, I've woke to find that she's pushed every piece of furniture and every stuffed animal into the middle of her cage so she could run around the edges.



allears.fan said:


> I got one of those comfort wheels (12") and boy is it noisy!
> It rattles most of the time. It wakes me up a little but i kind of just ignore it sometimes too.
> but should it rattle?


Yes, Comfort Wheels are rattly and noisy, because the wheel bounces against the plastic disc on the back. One good way to cut down on that noise is to get a hair scrunchie and wrap it around the spoke between the wheel and that disc. It worked very well for me when I was using a Comfort Wheel for Lily.


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## FiaSpice (Jan 16, 2009)

Wow, now I really sound like the odd one that can't sleep neat her hedgie, but I have sleep problems and any noise can wake me up. I can't also stand the heat at night, I prefer a cold room so I'm not a match with the hedgies.


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## odiakkoh (Apr 14, 2010)

FiaSpice said:


> Wow, now I really sound like the odd one that can't sleep neat her hedgie, but I have sleep problems and any noise can wake me up. I can't also stand the heat at night, I prefer a cold room so I'm not a match with the hedgies.


You're not odd unless we're odd together lol. I can't sleep with my rabbit in my room nor my rats when I had them. But I can sleep with my 14 month old climbing all over me screaming. Go figure :roll:


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## Willow Tree (Nov 12, 2009)

allears.fan said:


> I got one of those comfort wheels (12") and boy is it noisy!
> It rattles most of the time. It wakes me up a little but i kind of just ignore it sometimes too.
> but should it rattle?


I don't think it should. That's why I hate the wheel and I got one with two sides holding it up for support, and it works great for him.


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## Willow Tree (Nov 12, 2009)

Lilysmommy said:


> At Kurai: :lol: It's amazing how loud they can be sometimes, when they're redecorating! Lily does that sometimes too, I've woke to find that she's pushed every piece of furniture and every stuffed animal into the middle of her cage so she could run around the edges.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Using the hair scrunchies is the reason why Bandit's wheel broke. I had them on there, was working fine and then it popped out the center part of the wheel so it was all cracked and made everything even noisier!! I really need to get him a better wheel x.x


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## Morel3etterness (Dec 5, 2009)

Carefresh is sold at any major pet store like petsmart or petco. I just sprinkle a little bit around his wheel on top of layers of paper towels for easy pick up. It works wonders.


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## Amy1024 (Mar 18, 2010)

lol I keep Hershi in my bedroom, and her cage is like 5 feet from my bed. Call me weird, but I actually love it when I hear her wheeling, eating and even smelling her poop/pee. It just makes me happy to know she's okay and happy.


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## rivoli256 (Mar 1, 2009)

i now have 6 that sleep in my room...1 in bed with me & 5 in cages...the wheels & "crunch-crunch-crunch-nom-nom-nom" when they eat not to mention the eau de merde d'herrison...does not help my insomnia. i can only hope for the day when i get a job again & get my own place & they have their own room! i do keep a little fan running which helps with noise & smell & also have a white noise machine.


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## FiaSpice (Jan 16, 2009)

rivoli256 said:


> i now have 6 that sleep in my room...1 in bed with me & 5 in cages...the wheels & "crunch-crunch-crunch-nom-nom-nom" when they eat not to mention the eau de merde d'herrison...does not help my insomnia. i can only hope for the day when i get a job again & get my own place & they have their own room! i do keep a little fan running which helps with noise & smell & also have a white noise machine.


You have one in your bed?!? :shock:


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