help momma started attacking the babes

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hedgieluvr360

Member
Joined
Feb 19, 2013
Messages
10
there 4 weeks old thurs and tonight after we cleaned the cage. and fed her the hoagies war fallowing her around and she started attacking them? first a male then a female and slowly one by one we took them out. so ill be hand raising them till week 5 then weening them. these hedges are inbred rescues so could that be the reason why? we did nothing out of the normal for her to do this. do they still need to be stimulated to pee and poop at this age? i already have the items i need to feed them from the last rejected litter. so I'm prepared to do it and since there almost able to be weened they'll be fine just need a lil advice on them. the bathroom part. lol
 
My hypothesis is that the act of cleaning the cage disrupted momma's sense of safety and security - she felt danger; she reacted. Best thing to do is to leave her nest untouched (yep - uncleaned even if it's stinky) until the little ones are weaned. But, yes, there's also the possibility that she's determined there is something wrong with her babies that wasn't apparent before this age. Inbreeding certainly doesn't help the situation.

Either way, not too much you can do about it at this point... not like you can go back in time and stop the inbreeding nor unclean the cage. Certainly, you can do differently in the future... But, for now, let's focus on those babies.

I'm not 100% sure if you continue to need to stimulate them to go when they have reached 4 weeks old. Best resource I have for that is this: http://www.hedgehogcentral.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=10512&p=91129&hilit=stimulate+poop#p91129
which suggests they may be able to go on their own, but it wouldn't hurt to try and help them go.
 
sorry when i say clean i mean take a handful of messy(also moldy) and replace it to fresh. i changed have the cage half to fleece over a week(leaving the nest alone) ago because the bedding was cedar n i did not know not to use that i was only told no aspen. so i was trying to get as much out as possible directed by a breeder here. (in my town) and she's been fine with it. she didn't start this till they started coming out of the nest and trying to eat food. i tried the two boles thing and she ate there food and then came back to hers and got pissed when they got close to it. i give her plenty of food every day. (cucumbers, dry hedgie food, wet cat food, carrots, sometimes spinach, and 3 large meal worms.) so her thinking theres not enough shouldn't be a problem should it? she's also almost 4 maybe younger from what he vet said. and I've read older hedgies are just sometimes done with babys. :banghead:
 
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