# what age can you tell the color pattern for a hedgehog?



## LittleHedgie (May 24, 2014)

my mommy hog is a pinto (i think!) and i'm really hoping she has some pinto babies because i absolutely adore pinto hedgehogs! :grin: what age do baby hedgehogs start to grow white quills if they do end up being a pinto?


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## Lilysmommy (Jan 7, 2009)

If I remember right, you can tell pintos from birth as the patterning is on their skin, not just quills. If they don't have lighter spots on the skin corresponding with the patches of white quills, they're likely a snowflake rather than a pinto. I might be wrong though, I'm not fantastic on my color knowledge!


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## LittleHedgie (May 24, 2014)

really? that's super cool! I didn't know that.  i knew they could have some patches on their face, but i didn't know it could be other places as well


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## nikki (Aug 28, 2008)

Some babies can show white pinto spots as babies but by the time they finish their 9 week quilling they can end up with little or no pinto spots. I had a male that was very pinto'ed as a baby but when mature only had one tiny little pinto spot and never sired any pinto babies.

The only way to say for sure what colour they are is to wait till they are more than 9 weeks old.


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## Pygmyhogger (May 28, 2014)

Hi,
I have studied genetics in labs for years and I can assure you that pinto markings will be there from the start, the skin will be white as well as quills from Day 1. Quilling has no affect on pintoism whatsoever as it is blotches of albinism.
Hope that helps


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## Nancy (Aug 22, 2008)

I too have had a couple of babies with what I thought would be large pinto spots. Like Nikki's, those spot shrunk to small pinto spots.


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## Draenog (Feb 27, 2012)

Pinto is leucism (albinism is something else) - it is a lack of skin pigments in certain areas. This means those areas will not change. They will be there from birth, and the skin under the spots will be pink. They don't shrink. So if you have a baby with a pinto spot that turns out to be smaller, the spot itself (the skin) should be small already or there should be something else going on since it's not like the skin pigments magically reappear.


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## Hannah (May 15, 2014)

Maybe the pinto spots as babies appear to shrink as they get older because they "grow into" the spots? Not pinto, but my dog had a patch on the edge of her foot when she was a puppy, but she grew into the spot and now it's just a white toe. 

Sent from Petguide.com Free App


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## nikki (Aug 28, 2008)

Here are the pictures. I don't have any pics of when he was a few days old but his entire left side was pink at that time and the rest of him was dark.

The first one he is two weeks old and the skin under the white quills on the left is white.

The second one he is 12 weeks old and you can see he has some snowflakeing on the left side with pigmented skin under the quills and only one small pinto spot on his rump.


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## Draenog (Feb 27, 2012)

You can actually see the dark skin under the "fake" pinto quills. Pinto spots don't change, it might have been due to the snowflake pattern.


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## nikki (Aug 28, 2008)

Well before he had quills, as I already said, the left side of his body was pink, and the right side was grey, I do know the difference. There is dark skin on the edges of what you are calling "fake pinto quills" but most of it was pink!..I am not coloured blind and others saw the change as well.


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