# Sleep Locations



## blinker86 (Jan 29, 2011)

In Daphne's C&C cage she has an igloo with a large piece of fleece and a Kleenex box with fleece strips. Initially she spent a little time in each, mostly to sleep. However, it seems the only place she's interested in sleeping anymore is underneath her wheel in the corner of her cage. This is a bit annoying, as she throws her litter pan out of the way in the process of getting comfortable in that spot and makes a huge mess. Any suggestions for other appealing sleep accommodations or thoughts as to why she's sticking to this particular spot?


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## Nebular (Dec 28, 2010)

If she's digging out or shoving her litter box to get a place to sleep, it sounds like she might want to burrow. One thing you might want to try is putting an old, worn shirt in the cage with her. This will give her a dark place where she can sleep and satisfy her burrowing needs. The real benefit to it is it also gives her the chance to sleep in your smell and associated it with safety. When I put Norman back after snuggle time, I always place him back in the shirt so he can dig around and go back to sleep. He'll occasionally run out and go to his igloo instead. I think they pick one or two favourite place to sleep and keep going back to them because it's familiar.


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## jdlover90 (Jun 14, 2010)

You could have a small fleece blanket in there, Quilly loves his and always makes some sort of hedgie man cave out of it. :lol: 
Also, maybe put MORE fleece strips in the igloo you have if your hedgie wants to burrow more. Quilly has also slept under his wheel before, I think all hedgies sometimes sleep in different places just depending on their moods. :roll:


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## Puffers315 (Apr 19, 2010)

Depending on the hedgehog, the igloo house seems to be not liked by some, for reasons I've at least come up in my mind. I took a survey awhile ago, and at least 60% of hedgehogs enjoy sleeping on a hard surface (like the plastic floor of the cage) versus the fleece liner. I also think its because the igloos are transparent to a degree, and have a central door, versus their borrow in the wild that has a door with a tunnel before their actual burrow. Both of my hogs were avid liner divers and ignored the igloos I had for them (okay, Loki used his as a bathroom).

So I built them a Shoebox house (picture below). 12 Quart Steralite Container, you cut the door at one end, and stuff with fleece. Both of my guys sleep at the opposite side of the door, and typically pull the fleece up so they're sleeping right on the plastic floor. Both of them turn to get the fleece over top of them too, to make a nice cozy nest. So far, its worked out great, though within the last week, Hester has suddenly gone back to sleeping under the liner, I just let her, though its liner changing day tomorrow so she'll be mad.










Its worth a try, plus I like these houses because when I do change the liners and clean, I can lift them out without disturbing them fully to clean. But it gives them the option of a hard surface to sleep up, burrowing deeply into something, and having it nice and dark. These containers were clear, I used one layer of black color duck tape followed with a layer of designer duck tape to make them look pretty. The hard part is getting the door cut into the container.


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## HedgehogsAnonymous (Dec 30, 2010)

blinker86 said:


> In Daphne's C&C cage she has an igloo with a large piece of fleece and a Kleenex box with fleece strips. Initially she spent a little time in each, mostly to sleep. However, it seems the only place she's interested in sleeping anymore is underneath her wheel in the corner of her cage. This is a bit annoying, as she throws her litter pan out of the way in the process of getting comfortable in that spot and makes a huge mess. Any suggestions for other appealing sleep accommodations or thoughts as to why she's sticking to this particular spot?


My guys do that every so often when they want to make it difficult for me to get them out, Rum the last few nights has been sleeping in that little corner beneath his wheel...I think it's just one of those things.


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## HedgehogsAnonymous (Dec 30, 2010)

Puffers315 said:


> Depending on the hedgehog, the igloo house seems to be not liked by some, for reasons I've at least come up in my mind. I took a survey awhile ago, and at least 60% of hedgehogs enjoy sleeping on a hard surface (like the plastic floor of the cage) versus the fleece liner. I also think its because the igloos are transparent to a degree, and have a central door, versus their borrow in the wild that has a door with a tunnel before their actual burrow. Both of my hogs were avid liner divers and ignored the igloos I had for them (okay, Loki used his as a bathroom).
> 
> ----
> 
> My guys use 1gallon ice cream containers for houses with doors cut in--they seem to like them as they usually sleep inside with a t-shirt of mine, I've noticed when they're trying to be sneaky they will pop their heads under their house (not the door side) and peek out to see what's going on. I'm always expecting them to completely flip their houses haha


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## nibletsmom (Dec 20, 2010)

Well lets see...Niblet sleeps anywhere and everywhere. Since we brought him home, we have joked about how he will just plop down in the first spot he gets tired in. These make for some very hilarious sleeping positions and locations.

We have found him sleeping in his food bowl, under his wheel, on his wheel (this one was particularly funny because it looked like he just got tired while he was wheeling and just laid down to take a nap!). He sleeps in his hedgie tent,in his kleenex box and most recently the tube (like a dryer connector tube except for I bought it at the pet store)...the tube however was a surprise to me because I made it really long to line the back part of his cage, thinking that he would just use it as a tunnel and run through it. I never thought about him sleeping in it because it is pretty transparent and I thought it would not be dark and cuddly enough for him...well once again, he proved me wrong. He would crawl all the way to the center of the tube (which was about 2 feet long) and go to sleep! I swear he was mocking me by crawling to the one spot he knew I couldn't get to him. Well I have since removed the tube and made it much much shorter so when he sleeps in it, I can still get to him if needed.
Niblet's sleeping locations change all the time. This past week he has favored his kleenex box with fleece strips. I even told the little booger this morning (when he was saying his morning hello to me after I got home from work) that I couldn't believe that I spent $20 on his hedgie tent and he would rather sleep in the $1 kleenex box!

I would take the advice of the previous posts and try adding more fleece to areas to offer more room to burrow. Niblet never had an igloo...so I can't offer advice on that one. 

Also where is your heating set up? I know niblet favors the warmer spots in the cage over the less warm spots. Maybe your little one has found a warm spot to sleep??


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## MissC (Nov 15, 2010)

I think puffers is onto something. Snarf always used his hedgie bag to sleep until I put a piece of PVC pipe in - that became his fave spot. I felt like it was cruel & unusual punishment, so wanted to help by putting fleece strips in or at least a little piece of fleece. All I did was prompt a temper tantrum hwereby he very quickly removed ALL signs of fleece from PVC tube and area and walked around galring at me before finally settling down to sleep - in his bare, cold yucky PVC.

Now, a few weeks later, tho' he ignores the tube and sleeps in his hedgie bag/security blanket. You DON'T mess with his hedgie bag and he MUST. HAVE. IT. But at least three times a day, he falls asleep where he wants: middle of nowhere - wide open space - WTF?? :? 

I found a very simple and useful solution: I gave up. Works like a charm.


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## nibletsmom (Dec 20, 2010)

MissC said:


> I found a very simple and useful solution: I gave up. Works like a charm.


Same here!! Niblet has a mind of his own and is going to do his own thing whether me and my fiance like it or not. lol.


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## cylaura (Jan 13, 2011)

This is so funny - Liam never sleeps ANYWHERE besides his igloo. He's got a PVC tube, his wheel, and a dig box in there, and I've never once seen him sleep anywhere but curled up in the igloo. And whenever I put him back in his cage, no matter what time of day it is, he runs right to the igloo to sleep for a while first. I can only imagine the conniption that might occur should anything happen to that thing. :roll: 

As for the original issue with Daphne - definitely try add more fleece strips to the igloo. I always look forward to seeing what kind of construction project Liam has made with his every morning when I check on him. I also keep a big bag filled with extra fleece strips/t-shirt scraps should any of the ones currently in the cage get too dirty or gross-looking. 

Good luck!


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