# Winter weather making a change?



## darthvader (Jul 15, 2013)

Well hello, it has been quite a bit since I have been on here, school has been crazy this year, but I seem to be having endless issues with my hedgie Juliet. She has always had some temperate issues in the past, but I have learned to love them, but lately I can't ever seem to get anything right. It all pretty much started about 3 months ago when it started to get colder here in Michigan. She has not gained any weight but and seems to be eating the same amount of food and water, but on her frount right paw her outside most toe seemed to almost grow a scab around it, then the nail grew quite large, I called my vet and sent her some pictures and she said just to wait and see if it started to hurt her. I checked and washed and attempted to trim it daily also seein if it hurt her, and it never did. But them it fell off, it was bleeding but I toke care of that and washed it out very throughly every day and toke out her wheel for a bit Untill it was completely healed, and it seems to be fine, but now her nail on the inside of the same paw is doing the same thing? I'll try to get pictures to post tomorrow. But I can't seem to figure out what is causing the problem. 
And I recently I have been having a serious problem with her getting to cold it seems to be constantly. My room has a heater that is on if it gets below 70 and a wood burner right below my bed that is always going, keeping my room about 74ish constantly along with that juliet has a heating pad that she has under the blankets that she sleeps on that is on a nice warm heat. And th is has always been plenty to keep her warm, but recently she has been getting constantly too cold on her belly, so I am always freaking out worrying that she is too cold, checking on her every hour at night and having people go over and check on her during the day. Is it because possibly that her body is telling her go into hibernation because of the time of the year ever if her room is the temp of summer? Has anyone else had these problems and had sucess with any tactics? 
Thanks for any help! Meens a lot!


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## Lilysmommy (Jan 7, 2009)

How old is Juliet? It's not uncommon for hedgehogs to need warmer temperatures as they get older. Lily started having issues even around 1-1.5 years old. I had to keep raising her cage temp until we settled at 78-81* to keep her comfortable. Sounds like she's not staying warm enough, so you need to get the temperature up. Heating pads aren't really the best thing to use. It could actually be exacerbating her issues - one problem with them is the change in temperature when a hedgehog goes from laying on the heating pads to the cooler part of the cage with no pad. That can be enough to cause problems for sensitive hedgies.

I would drop the heating pad and get a CHE set up for her cage instead. Do you have a thermometer for her cage specifically? If not, get one. Try keeping her cage temperature steady at 76* between your room heaters and the CHE set up. If that's not enough, bump it up to 78*.

And one last note - make sure she's getting 12 hours of light during the day via an artificial light. Many people figure daylight is good enough, but it's not. It can get too dark on stormy or cloudy days even in the summer, and it's definitely not enough during the winter. Less light can cause hibernation attempts too.


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