# Very tiny/skinny poops???



## SnufflePuff (Apr 16, 2009)

As many of you know, I've been having some problems with my hedgehog Puff over the past few months both with her having a severe headtilt/walking difficulties and with her GI tract. Well miraculously - Puff's headtilt and walking seems almost 100% better (well at least back to what it was before - she's always going to have a slight headtilt but she seems great!). She's eating great, drinking great, and I even saw a tiny bit of poop on the wheel the other day so I think she's attempted to wheel a few times (although with her head tilt she may not ever be comfortable enough to wheel again the vet says).

HOWEVER...

Her poops seem to be getting worse. That being said they are NO longer green, slimey or icky but they are TINY and SKINNY. Now they've been like this for the past month or so without any change on sulcrate (tummy coater kind of like pepto bismol), no change on probiotics (Bene-bac) and no change on Pumpkin. 

But the past 2 nights, they are even smaller and skinnier. Some pieces are the size of peas and round. 

Puff did have white blood cells in her stools a while back when tested and her bloodwork also indicated that she was recovering from anemia. She is due to go back for another blood check but I don't have someone who can drive me at the moment and I really can't afford the $100 to check the blood (which I'm thinking is pointless anyways) + the $50-80 exam fee + the $50 taxi ride fee just to end up with more question marks and not any more answers.

The vet basically said without an intestinal biopsy there's no way to know what's going on for sure and that we could "try" steroids to "see" if it's Inflammatory Bowel Disease or something similar but that she doesn't like to do that because steroids have bad side effects.

Has anyone experienced anything similar? What can small poops/skinny poops mean? I'm just looking for some general suggestios to run off of here. She seems fine otherwise, I'm just not sure what to do for her to help her poop better?

I should also mention she's not constipated, because she poops a lot, they just are tiny poops.


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## Judi (Jul 9, 2009)

Is she eating less than she used to? Less food intake will cause smaller poops. If she's not able to exercise as much as she used to, she might be less hungry.

Lulu had very thin poops for a little while, until I realized she had lost the teeth that made it easy to chew up her food. Once I started grinding the kibble, she was able to eat it and her poop went back to its normal volume. I'm not suggesting that Puff has dental problems...just that a change in eating habits can cause a change in pooping habits.


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## SnufflePuff (Apr 16, 2009)

I posted this on my ferret forum too just to get some general small animal advice (a lot of people on there have other small animals) and someone asked the same question and I was like "DUH!" total lightbulb moment :roll: :lol: 

Puff has basically just been eating Royal Canin BabyCat since she got really sick about a month - a month and a half ago. I'm still mixing in her normal mix and she eats some kibbles but she's been having a hard time with the bigger kibbles because of her head tilt and is one of those finiciky hedgehogs who won't eat her normal kibble if I break it up / crush it or soften it. 

Is it possible that her poops are so tiny because she's mostly been eating the babycat tiny kibbles? 

Could the fact that they have corn and corn isn't very digestible for hedgehogs have something to do with it?

I'd wean her off of them to "see" if her poop improved if I could, but believe me she won't have none of that.

She's not losing weight and is still eating a lot though, so could her poops really be that small from the small babycat pieces???


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## Judi (Jul 9, 2009)

I think it's more about the volume eaten than the size of the pieces. Corn should mean more waste being produced, since it's something a hedgie's body can't use.

Do you supplement with wet food? I did that with Lulu and it made a difference for her. I usually cooked chicken breast with a few fruits and veggies, just boiled it all until soft, then pureed it in the blender and froze it into little ice cubes, so I could thaw one out every night for her (kind of like the food cubes thing for making your own baby food  ). I put it in a low dish, because she had WHS and couldn't eat from her old dish without tipping over, and she would lick it up every night.


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## SnufflePuff (Apr 16, 2009)

Unfortunately puff is a stubborn hedgie. Has never liked wet food or baby food (except when it's being force fed to her) and won't even eat her healthy normal food if I alter it in any way. :roll: 

I might give the wet food a try and see if I can get her to try her regular food broken into smaller chunks.


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## Kalandra (Aug 25, 2008)

I'm thrilled to read that her mobility is getting better. Go Puff go!
I have a few thoughts...

How is her weight? One thought I had is that the food may be more digestible and there is less waste.

Another is how much is she drinking, and are the stools of normal consistency? Are they thin and loose, thin and hard, or thin and normal consistency? Thin and hard could be that there isn't enough water getting to her GI.

Does she strain at all when defecating? I'd watch for bloat, hardness in her abdomen, straining to defecate, etc. Which can all be signs of an obstruction or tumor pressing on her GI.


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## rivoli256 (Mar 1, 2009)

great advice from Kalandra. mine is not so cool.  not to mention i am hijacking part of my own post from another thread.  forgive me!

if he seems to be preferring the smaller kibble, go with it! my guy Henry used to love HUGE kibble that was bigger than his mouth when he was little. now that he is older, he likes tiny kibble. & god forbid it doesn't crunch. he also gets thin, spindly poop when he eats less. his water intake usually remains the same - but not always. he's a bit melodramatic in his "statements" to me about how he feels about things. :roll: :lol: (he's totally the kid that says "I'M. NOT. GONNA." & sits there defiantly...then a few hours later wants a hug!)

anyway...

& i have noticed all 5 of my guys like miniscule, round kibble...though they tolerate square shapes. *no* Xs though. uh-uh. all of these are very small...& ones i currently use with good result.

puppy/dog foods:
Solid Gold Just a Wee Bit
Innova Small Bites (i use both flavors they make)
Spot's Stew Salmon
Now! Small Breed
by Nature Puppy (slightly larger tubular shape - similar to Blue Buffalo, but they like it)

kitten/cat:
Merrick Before Grain cat (chicken, tuna)
Wellness Kitten, Indoor Health
Spot's Stew (turkey, chicken, & salmon - 3 separate flavors)

OH - one thing that helped Henry A LOT was adding in Animal Essentials Plant Enzymes & Probiotic supplement. i already had him on BeneBac. i think i was the bump of digestive enzymes that really helped out. immediate difference in output. 
http://www.amazon.com/Animal-Essentials-Plant-Enzymes-Probiotics/dp/tags-on-product/B0002ADJYM

hope this might help. good luck. keep us posted.


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## SnufflePuff (Apr 16, 2009)

Thanks guys,

I've been terrible with forums lately  I post something and then I get so busy with work and my sickies (Puff the hedgehog and Olivia the ferret have both been having issues at the same time, of course :roll: ) that I don't have time to go check the replies.

Puff's poops seem pretty dry and hard now that you mention it Kalandra. She never actually lets me witness her poop so I'm not sure about the straining and she won't stay still enough to let me get a good feel of her tummy, even when scruffed. 

That being said, I see her drinking quite often every day and I know she's drinking a lot of water. Maybe I will see if I can get her eating some canned food for extra water though. 

I have been wondering about a GI tumour the whole time this has been going on. I don't really think it could be a foreign body obstruction, because there's really nothing she could have eaten, but a tumour obstructing the GI tract seems highly possible to me at this point. Would that show up on a Xray?

Her poops aren't getting any smaller now, and they are an OK size, just no where close to as big and good looking as the other 2 hedgies'. 

I'll take a look at those digestive enzymes too, thanks. I might try giving her lots of pumpkin too and see if I can clean out the digestive tract. 

Has anyone ever tried extra virgin olive oil with hedgehogs? I give it to the ferrets along with pumpkin and it really cleans out their insides when they've got hairballs. Maybe flax seed oil would do the same for hedgies? Or if olive oil is safe to give, it works quite well.


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## Kalandra (Aug 25, 2008)

I've never tried olive oil. You can add flaxseed oil, or if you have it, add some salmon oil to her kibble. Fish oil is an excellent source of the DHA form of omega 3's and all of my hedgehogs have tended to go after kibbled that it has been dropped on with gusto. It doesn't take much to get a hedgehog to have a loose stool from it. Which is a problem when you are using it to help support a cancer patient.

I'm a bit concerned though that if she is drinking plenty that her stools are still dry. See if you can get her to eat some canned food, or kibble that has been soaked in water. She's in my thoughts, I hope she has a normal stool for you soon.


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## SnufflePuff (Apr 16, 2009)

Kalandra said:


> I've never tried olive oil. You can add flaxseed oil, or if you have it, add some salmon oil to her kibble. Fish oil is an excellent source of the DHA form of omega 3's and all of my hedgehogs have tended to go after kibbled that it has been dropped on with gusto. It doesn't take much to get a hedgehog to have a loose stool from it. Which is a problem when you are using it to help support a cancer patient.
> 
> I'm a bit concerned though that if she is drinking plenty that her stools are still dry. See if you can get her to eat some canned food, or kibble that has been soaked in water. She's in my thoughts, I hope she has a normal stool for you soon.


Thanks  
She is such a picky little hedgehog, I'm going to have to see if I can find a kind of wet canned food that she likes.
I don't think that the stools are actually that hard/dry, I think what's happening is that because they are smaller, they are drying out by the time I see them in the morning, whereas the other hedgehogs stools, which are bigger, don't dry out as quickly.

Her stools seem to be getting a little bigger now that I'm trying to give her more of her regular food and less of the babycat.

I do have some organic alaskan salmon oil for my ferrets (it's the human kind in the capsules) so I might try putting that on the old food and see if she'll eat it or I might try softening the dry food and then adding oil to entice her to eat it mushy.

She seems fine otherwise so I'm not stressing over it too much.


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