# Awkward Quill?



## ktdid (Aug 7, 2012)

Ok. This is probably a weird/paranoid question, but Fitz has been quilling and obviously growing new ones. I've been amazed at how fast they seem to grow in. Anyways this evening when I picked him out for playtime I had him sitting with me on the bed and I looked down and noticed an odd bare spot on his back with a clump of quills that didn't lay like the others. Well I gave him a treat and started looking at them closely parting the quills around it and it looks like two quills growing out the same spot or something. I took some pictures that I will post below. I played with it a bit more since it didn't seem to bother him and I tried to separate them and the one quill almost looks like it is broken or something and when I moved it, the skin that I thought was where it was growing from stretched too. I think the actual base of the quill is closer to "bald" area but the quill somehow grew up next to the other one far from it's actual base. It almost seems like an ingrown hair that made it's way out, just in the wrong place. Does that description make sense at all??? What do you think this is? Normal? Should I do something about it?

Below are the pics, sorry they aren't better. Cell phone. It might be slightly pinker around that area but it pretty hard to tell because his skin is so pink anyways. There is no puss or anything. Doesn't seem to hurt him. He is 11 weeks old.


----------



## moxieberry (Nov 30, 2011)

I wouldn't worry about it, quills just come in weird sometimes. Vendetta once even had a quill that stuck in the opposite direction as all the others (it was kind of cool, haha) and plenty of ours have a few quills that are kinked or bent looking. Quills are modified hairs, so they work in more or less the same way. Multiple hairs will often come out of the same pore, so it's not surprising that some quills would grow in practically on top of each other.


----------



## ktdid (Aug 7, 2012)

moxieberry said:


> I wouldn't worry about it, quills just come in weird sometimes. Vendetta once even had a quill that stuck in the opposite direction as all the others (it was kind of cool, haha) and plenty of ours have a few quills that are kinked or bent looking. Quills are modified hairs, so they work in more or less the same way. Multiple hairs will often come out of the same pore, so it's not surprising that some quills would grow in practically on top of each other.


Ok good.  Guess I'm just paranoid. The one quill is flat-ish though, not round like the others. Like I said it kind of looked broken or something, but I really think it is flat rather than round. Is shape variation like that normal?


----------



## moxieberry (Nov 30, 2011)

It's not exactly "normal" but it happens sometimes and isn't a sign of anything in particular. Quills can get damaged as they're growing in, bent, flattened, etc. - for no particular reason. They have air on the inside, so they're not as durable as you might think. I've seen plenty of flat ones. Sometimes they stay for a while and sometimes they end up falling out pretty soon. Depends on whether the follicle is damaged as well, I assume.


----------



## ktdid (Aug 7, 2012)

Good to know. I messed with it a bit more and it is firmly attached, although he didn't mind at all that I was messing with his quills so it clearly doesn't hurt. I've been working on getting him used to me touching his back so I guess that is working! YAY. I'll leave it alone but keep an eye on it. Thanks for your advice.


----------



## moxieberry (Nov 30, 2011)

No problem!  If it was going to be a problem it would have already been by now - it's enough through the skin already. I've dealt with a few ingrown quills, which always look nastier than they actually are. They're either little white "bubbles" of pus at the base of a new or just-coming-in quill (think a whitehead pimple, haha) or they look like little scabby sores, which would be because the hedgie has already scratched at it. I've noticed that it's the visor quills more often than not.


----------



## Lilysmommy (Jan 7, 2009)

I would definitely keep an eye on it, just in case. Lily had a couple of ingrown quills, and one of them was a bit deformed like that - flat, and more stuck into the skin. So just keep a lookout for anything else up with it.


----------



## Tabi (Jun 24, 2012)

Yeah it looks like it COULD be/become ingrown. I'm always paranoid about ingrown quills because I have no idea how I'd fix it  I check over my quill babies for ingrown ones, but thankfully none yet


----------



## Lilysmommy (Jan 7, 2009)

For Lily's ingrown quills, they required vet visits - both times, the quills came out with a little pulling, though the second one was a bit harder to get out if I recall correctly. She was very good for both times, and afterwards the vet just wiped her clean and told me to keep an eye on it. I think I put some plain Neosporin on the spots both times for a couple nights afterwards, but never had further problems with them after the quill was removed, and they weren't bad enough to need antibiotics.


----------



## Tabi (Jun 24, 2012)

phew that's good :?


----------



## ktdid (Aug 7, 2012)

Just an update: I did keep an eye on it and Tuesday night it was quite inflamed and red. I made a vet appointment but the earliest I could get was Friday. Unfortunately I got some bad news today and my Friday was suddenly totally booked. I had to cancel the vet appointment. When I got home today I pulled him out and fed him a treat so I could get a close look. It looked worse and seemed to be oozing a bit of puss. I decided to take action cause I knew by next week it would be really bad. I got a pair of tweezers and pulled it out. It slid out very easily with very little effort and basically no resistance. Fitz didn't really seem to be in pain. He didn't even seem to notice until I got to the very end and pulled out the ball end of the quill. The end was misshapen and yellowish color. The tip of the quill that had pushed it's way out was flat like I already mentioned but the bit still stuck under the skin was round and looked normal until the very end of the root. Fitz was very annoyed with me when I was trying to clean the wound however. I just had a qtip that was slightly damp with room temp water because I wanted to clean away the puss. He bit the fleece blanket he was laying on. We cuddled a bit after that at his insistence (He is a big cuddler). We watched some of the DNC, had a piece of scrambled egg and it seems all is forgotten and he is comfortably sleeping. 

I hope this isn't a reoccurring problem and was just because of that misshapen quill. It wasn't that big of a deal, but it certainly isn't something either of us want to deal with on the regular.


----------



## moxieberry (Nov 30, 2011)

Yup, sounds like an ingrown quill. The ones I've dealt with so far have never been as far out as the pic, but they were also located at the visor, so maybe that's the difference. I've also seen flat quills that never turned into anything at all, so who knows! At this point you can put a dab of neosporin (regular strength) or polysporin on it, which is what I've done until it's not open and red looking and starts to properly scab over - but if it doesn't look inflamed or anything it's probably fine without, and not putting any on would avoid him potentially bugging at it because of the ointment. So, that's your call.  It should be pretty much gone in a few days. Ingrown quills are common enough that I've dealt with a few in the last two months, but they've been on different hedgehogs (no repeat cases) and they were all quilling at the time.


----------



## ktdid (Aug 7, 2012)

How common is it for a singular hedgie to have multiple ingrown quills? Is this just something that they deal with an heal on their own and I am just noticing easily because he is albino? Are albinos more apt to suffer from these kinds of issues? Or do I just have a special little boy with difficult quills?

I just pulled another one off Fitz on the back of his head, just at the edge of the visor. I had been watching it for about 4 days and decided tonight it was just too red and inflamed so I pulled it out. Again no resistance and the root end is sort of deformed although differently from the one described previously. Also this quill is very blunt, as in it doesn't taper back down to the root from the wide part of the shaft. The widest part is the root. 

It's very funny, it is honestly like he knows he has a problem and I am gonna fix it. When I looked at it previous times this week he was fussy and didn't want me to touch the area He doesn't like his face or head touched so I wasn't surprised. But tonight when I looked at it he rolled his head under in a position that made it easier for me to see and he didn't move one while I was messing with it and ultimately pulling it out. Cleaning it and putting some triple antibiotic on it was another story though. Odd little creatures, huh?


----------



## moxieberry (Nov 30, 2011)

It happens. Sometimes it'll be a few around the same time and area (which happened to my boy, Wilde) or it'll just happen a few times during quilling. In my experience it's the quilling that does it - so many new quills coming in so quickly, once in a while one of them comes in weird or snags the skin or whatever else that makes it happen. It seems to be the visor area most of the time. It has nothing to do with him being albino, though - except the pale skin might make it more visible, or just make it look more red when it does occur.

I haven't had to tug a quill out yet, but our mentor had to tug a few quills out with a baby that got a few all in one side of the visor. It helps the little tiny area of infection/pus drain out more quickly. Unless a hedgie really scratches at it and irritates it to the extreme and it somehow turns into a larger wound or open sore, they'll go away on their own.


----------



## ktdid (Aug 7, 2012)

Hmm. So is it better for me to remove them or let them be? I figured it was just from quilling and the massive amount of loss and growth. He is tapering off but still losing and growing new ones regularly.


----------



## moxieberry (Nov 30, 2011)

If you see one that has pus underneath, and it comes out without you actually having to yank it out - meaning, slides out on its own with just a tiny tug; sort of like how a ripe berry will come off the twig without you having to put any effort into it (if that makes sense!) - then it's fine, it means it would've fallen out on its own most likely, and I assume doing so will help it heal faster. Just don't go yanking out quills that don't want to come out, haha.


----------

