# hedgehog with strange smell



## Aliciacyh (Jul 3, 2013)

So i had my 2 yr old female hedgehog for 1 month and 3 weeks already. For these time that i had her, i had been bathing her nearly every week with a diluted medicated shampoo because of her fungus problem. So last thurs i thought it would be her last weekly bath as her fungus problem had fully resolved and i don intend to bathe her weekly anymore. But overnight (i still held and played with her on previous night and she does not smell) she develop a strong sour-ish stinky smell. As she has left ear infection that still had not really clear even with the vet's medi, i thought the smell was from her ear but when i took her out to check her ears i realise the smell is not from her ears so i smelled her body and realise the smell is the strongest towards her butt area. As she is very overweight, she tends to get pee stains at her bottom but she never had smelled this bad. Also previously she had been pooping in her sleep area but for the past 1 week she had stop pooping in her sleep area. All her poo is in her litter tray. So i thought she would be quite clean since she does not play with a wheel. I had been suspecting she may have a bladder infection or smthing because i had seen very faint pinkish spot in the middle of her pee spot ever since i got her. Urine dipstick always shows there is blood in her pee but microscopy examination of her pee shows no red blood cell at all and bacteria load is normal also. Xray also taken and nothing was found so my vet and i are reluctunt to start any meds as she had previously been on a 3 weeks antifungal meds and she still seems active and ok so i say i will monitor her closely. Sorry for the long post but so my questions are:
1) do female hedghog has the sourish smell when they are on heat? I can't seems to find anything about this online.
2) should i just start meds for her just in case? 
3) her ear infection is getting better but still everytime when i clean her ears before putting medication, they bleed quite a bit. I don't mean the ear flaps. I mean the inside ear. The 2nd cotton bud that i put in will start to have blood even for the ok ear. Is that normal? I did not force the cotton bud into her ears. Just a gentle clean and they will start to bleed from don know where.
Thanks for reading my long post. Any reply would be appreciated.


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## twobytwopets (Feb 2, 2014)

Female hedgehogs don't have a heat cycle. They are induced ovulaters so that really isn't an option. 
Blood in her urine, isn't normal and could possibly be coming from her uterus instead of her urinary tract. 
How are you gauging the progress her ear infection?


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## nikki (Aug 28, 2008)

She needs to go back to the vet. Her ears shouldn't be bleeding when you clean them and she shouldn't have blood in her urine. She could have a uterine issue. As twobytwo said hedgehogs don't come into heat. This isn't something you should put off getting treated.

You said she doesn't run on a wheel. Does she have a wheel that she just doesn't use or does she not have a wheel?


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## twobytwopets (Feb 2, 2014)

Also regarding the wheel, she may not be using it because she is uncomfortable in so many areas. So far we know she has problems with her ears, her skin, and her urinary tract and or her reproductive organs. She is no doubt at the very least uncomfortable and that may be why she doesn't want to run on her wheel. 
She is going to try her absolute hardest to keep acting as normal as possible. In her mind, if she appears weak, she will become another animals lunch. That is a certain reality for her.


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## Aliciacyh (Jul 3, 2013)

Thks for the reply. 
Regarding the wheel issue, she has a bucket wheel but she just does not use it. I tried to use smthing to block her from coming down the wheel so she would at least try to run it but she refuses. Her previous 2 owners (i am the 3rd owner) did not offer her a wheel at all so i guess she may not know what it is for?
Her skin issue had already recovered after 3 weeks of oral meds and 3 doses of revolution every 3 weeks apart. So the skin is no longer an issue anymore. Just has to wait for her quills to grow out which a lot had already did.
Her ears i guage by the amount and color of the discharge to see if its better. She came to me with scabs and discharges all over her inside ears and ear flaps so now her ear flaps had recovered but just left the inside of her left ear that still have some yellowish discharges which is an improvement from before coz it was pus discharge initially. Vet says it may take longer to recover as she may had the infection for quite long already before i got her. I am wondering is that why her ears bled easily? Like an after effect from the long untreated infection?
For the urine/uterus issue. She is quite a friendly hedgie that does not ball up even at the vet. So the vet also managed to feel her tummy and felt nothing unusual but i still went ahead and have the xray taken to confirm and xray really showed nothing wrong.
I will be bringing her back to the vet again and see what else we can do. Just to clarify a point. Her pee has no visible blood in it. As in she could pee a puddle on the floor and you cannot see any blood in it at all. Not even a tinge. The faint pinkish spot is only visible when her pee had dried up on white paper towels. So i am not sure why the dipstick can pick up the blood but the microscopy cannot. I heard that dipsticks are not accurate at all?


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## Hedgehog Swag (Feb 19, 2016)

You may want to try a saucer. Scrizzie does not use her wheel but runs on the saucer every night.


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