rough edge ears

[cooljm94]

I read somewhere that this can mean mites, but I do not see any nor does he itch all the time.
He also has dry skin and when I clean his fleece bedding I tend to find about 2-4 quills that have fallen out, does this sound like mites? I try to treat the dry skin with oatmeal baths but they never seem to work, even though he LOVES them.

He acts perfectly fine, he is a larger hedgie and can be a bit grumpy when I wake him up.
So suggestions?
I can take him to an experienced vet, thats no big deal but I've heard things about some medications that can be bad for them.

So to put this short:
Is this the symptoms of mites or something else? How should I treat the dry skin? Will it go away with the mites? Will his ears heal? What medications should I refuse to give to him?

 

[smhufflepuff]

Dry skin, itching, losing quills, and rough ears could be a few things - seems the most likely culprits are dry skin or mites.

If it's dry skin, the occasional oatmeal bath can help. You can also apply flax seed oil (get the capsules, poke a hole, and squeeze the oil out) to his skin and/or his food. For his ears you can moisturize - flax seed oil, vitamin e, bag balm, and/or human nipple cream.

If it's mites, you'll want to ask your vet for Revolution - either the dog or cat formula is fine; but easiest to just get the cat/kitten since the tube is smaller than the dog. You just place a drop or two on your hedgie between the shoulder blades. The one vs two drops depends on how big your hedgie is. The one you want to stay away from is Ivomec/Invermectin - it goes by a couple names and is injected.

Some ways to tell the difference between dry skin and mites are if you flakes of dry skin moving around on your hedgie (the mites are moving the dry skin) or a lot of scratching. But neither of those are definitive signs. Your vet can do a skin scraping to help figure out what's going on, but there are a lot of false negatives; that is, the swab comes back free of mites, but hedgie does have them (the swab just missed where they were at the time).

Because of this, if your home treatments for dry skin don't work, a lot of people just go ahead and treat with Revolution just to cover all the bases.

And if that doesn't work, it's likely something else... fungal infection... allergies... But rule out the dry skin and mites first. Oh, and you can put him on liners if he isn't already and make sure you're using the scent free detergent without dryer sheets when you wash them.

 

[cooljm94]

well I don't see him itching, ever. So I will try the flax seed oil, if that doesn't help then I will go to my vet. I already use liners, I love them. If his skin doesn't improve I will definitely go to my vet.

 

[Kalandra]

Just as an additional thought.

Does your hedgehog tube? If so, it could be the tube causing the roughness. I had a very avid tuber once and she started to get rough edges on her ears. The hedgehog in question also had large ears. Her problem was dirt, dust and paper particles getting stuck to the edges of her ears. Using a wet wash cloth and a little bag balm after wards helped soften the build up and it eventually came off. After that I just washed her ears fairly often.