Not using wheel...

[Tessa.31]

Hello,
Well Aiden didnt use his wheel last night, and he's usually a mad man on his wheel every night, is it normal for them to skip a night of wheeling?? he ate normally and drank, and ate his mealies,I probaly seem a bit insane for worrying so much but i jsut want to make sure hes alright.
THanks,
Tessa

 

[smhufflepuff]

That happens every so often with Satin too. And the possibilities explaining why seem almost endless. Here's a few:

Check the wheel and make sure it's spinning freely. Sometimes they bump up against something or they're tightened too much.
Sometimes the wheel smells funny (offensive) to hedgies. If you washed it with anything scented, go ahead and rinse it out.
Maybe the cage temperature was wrong (like if your heater wasn't able to keep up with falling night-time temperatures).
Was there an unusual sound or smell last night that Aiden could have picked up on - a storm in the area; next door neighbor's all-nite party.
Any booboo's on Aidan's feet.
Aidan's nails growing too long to be comfortable running.
It's also possible that Aidan ran, but managed to NOT poop and pee on the wheel creating the illusion that it wasn't used.

It's great that he ate and drank normally. How was his poop? Other than probably not running last night, is there anything else out of the ordinary with Aidan today?

 

[hedgiespirit]

My boyfriend and I have noticed that Ossian hasn't wheeled much in the past few nights. Either he hasn't wheeled at all or not enough that is noticeable during the night while we sleep or in the morning by the poopiness of the wheel. Also, last night, I was awoken by a very strange noise coming from his cage. It was some sort of squeal/vocalization. I was pretty out of it and can't remember exactly what it sounded like now, but I jumped right out of bed and checked on him. He was inside his igloo snuggled in his fleece blankies and was quite huffy when I picked him up (not abnormal, especially in the middle of the night) and I have no idea what made him make the noise. I got him out this morning and set him on the floor to watch him walk around. He walks completely normally, his belly is warm, his nails don't appear long enough that they should impede wheeling. He is still eating and drinking normally and his cage is kept at a constant range of 76-77F.

Any ideas about the strange squeal and his lack of wheeling?

For now, I plan to raise the temperature of his cage a degree or two in case he finds his wheeling area a bit chilly for his liking. Also on Thursday I plan to clip his nails after buying new clippers since mine did not seem sharp enough to do a very good job last time.

Any other suggestions?