# Doing Circles with his Butt



## Dianaleebrown (Jul 17, 2017)

Hi all,

I recently brought home my hedgehog almost a week ago, and he's a little over 3 months old. When I take him out to handle at night, I set him on a towel covered in paper towels to do his businesss for about 10 minutes or so. For the past couple of nights after finishing with his business, I have noticed little Herbert pushing his butt out like he has to poop (very aggressively I might add) and swinging it in circles. I'm pretty sure he doesn't need to go to the bathroom given the fact he pooped about 5-6 times and peed twice. Plus, when he's pooping he's usually just calm and stands there. I caught the ending of him doing this on video, but I don't see a place for me to post it. 

Does anyone know if I should be concerned with this behavior? Like I said he's pooping regularly and isn't constipated, but he's swinging his butt around and pushing hard like he's trying to get something out. I might just be a paranoid new mother right now, but I worry for my baby! ?

Please, any insight that you all have is greatly appreciated! I've been feeling extra anxious since we brought him home!


----------



## Yukidama's mama (Apr 4, 2017)

Hi and welcome! ^^

I'm a fairly new hedgie owner myself so maybe someone with more experience can add in on this but thought I'd comment since my boy maybe does a similar thing. I'm still yet to determine what it is exactly he is doing and not completely sure it is even the same thing as what your boy is doing... Is it more like he's thrusting his behind, as in tucking it in and pushing out? Does he also bend his head down at the same time too? As that could potentially be him attempting position for 'boy time'. This is what I thought my boy was always doing through reading previous posts to calm my worries when I first got him and saw him do it(!) but recently I read about females doing more like what my boy does so now I'm back to thinking it's more like a stretch/spasm, as nowadays he doesn't fall over onto his side into a ball ~ does your hedgie? If he goes really into it his back legs bend out and he does a cat curl shape then spasms and sometimes sneezes, then it stops and he's normal again. Anything the same? The way I can tell if my boy is about to poop is his tail will push out right before the poop follows ><. If he's a bit constipated/pushing out a big one his body tends to shake a bit too. Although now that I think about it, last week whilst on my lap and half way through doing his business >< he did do a really weird bottom wiggle as if to move his bowels and another poop followed but if your boy is doing this and no poop follows I'm not sure if it's the same thing, unless he is maybe constipated, if none of the above stretching/spasm movements sound similar?
Does his poop look normal? Should be solid log like shapes and same kind of colour as food.

I'm not sure if this helps or is anything like what your boy does? So see what others with more experience have to say on the matter. Just thought it would be good to compare in case it is a similar thing as I can't find much information about it ><

I think to post a video you can do it through the 'go advanced' button maybe, I'm not sure as I haven't posted a video yet. Everytime I go to video him doing this weird spasm I either miss it by the time I grab my phone or it's too dark and turning on the light snaps him out of it :/ but he does its every night and sometimes more than once. I'd be interested to see the video clip to see if it is a similar thing to what my hedgie does


----------

