Allergies?

[zoesmom]

Zoe is 2 years 9 months old. She has always been very healthy until now. I noticed about a month ago that she was losing more quills than normal. Before I would maybe find one quill a month, now everytime I clean her cage (twice a week) I find like 10 quills.

Anywho, I took her to the vet who thought it may be mites, She did a skin scraping and looked under the microscope and did not see anything. She gave he a dose of ivermectin as the quill loss and scratching indicated mites. She had another dose 10 days later and the vet said I should see improvement soon. She also said if I dont see improvement after the second dose then its not mites and that it may be allergies.

Nothing in Zoes cage or diet has changed since I got her 2.5 years ago. Its all the exact same, I don't use shavings as she uses her litterbox (most of the time) so I dont know what she would be allergic to. Her ears are all ragged, so I put some vitamin E oil on them last night.

I have not been using any new cleaning products in or near her age either.

Help!

[HedgePigLove]

Hello,

Sorry that you post hasn't been answered sooner. Sometimes we get behind with things. (At least I do.)

Since Zoe didn't respond to the Ivermectin treatments, you might want to ask the vet to look for some sort of fungal infection.

However, most of my hedgies do go through periodic "small quillings", even as adults. I don't think that 10 quills lost over several days is a dramatic loss - that's two or three a day, by my reckoning. It's possible that Zoe is responding to a change in the seasons (I've noticed that mine usually lose more quills at the beginning and end of summer).

Have you noticed any bare spots on Zoe from the missing quills? Is she scratching a lot? Does she have dry, flaking skin? Does she have new quills coming in? How's her appetite? How does her feces and urine look?

[Nancy]

Sorry, I missed this too. Going from computer to computer until mine gets FIXED is driving me nuts and I tend to miss things.

Ragged ears can be nothing more than a buildup of gunk. Some of mine get get gunky ears easily. I use human nipple cream and it works well. Vit E oil should work also. Usually after a week there is improvement. Some take longer than others.

I find in the hot weather many of mine will loose more quills than normal.

I'd just keep an eye on her and see if she starts showing bald or obviously thin areas.

[groovychic]

My two have been loosing quills like crazy lately too. I was wondering if it could be the weather....now I know :) Been finding quills everywhere too! My bf found one in his sock yesterday! OUCH :O

[MsTickldPink]

How many places did the vet take skin scrapings from? If the hedgie does have dry, flaky skin, try a oatmeal bath (I literally put oatmeal in thier bath water and let them swim for a while and then rinse them under a faucet to get the oatmeal out of there quills)

[hedgie girls]

Both my girls are loosing quills also. Our albino is loosing more than the other one. I don't see any bare spots and nothing has changed in their environment. I wonder if it could be the change of seasons like Laura mentioned.

Cyndy