Wheels as nail files

[HogMom2B]

Okay so I am getting my hedgie in a month or so and I have been reading up about them a bunch. It seems like people tend to have a tough time trimming their nails. I have read that if you put rough stuff for them to climb on like bricks or patio tiles it helps to file donw their nails. I had an idea last night and was wondering if any of you have tried anything like it. What if you lined their wheel with something a little rough so that it helps with their nails. Obviously I don't mean anything that would hurt their little feet, but something that simulates some of the rougher stuff they walk on in the wild. My first thought was a very very fine sandpaper, something that almost feels like concrete. Also this may help with their grip on the wheel. Have any of you tried anything like this, and do you think it would work? Or any other ideas for materials that could be better??

[Nancy]

Putting something on the wheel will just injure the pads of their feet. They run on the pads, not the nail so the nail doesn't even make contact with the wheel. :)

[HogMom2B]

Well that is good to know, I don't want to be hurting any little footsies!! Thanx Nancy :)

[hularious]

You should see if your hedghog can deal with nail trimming first. If they're handled enough, they should be OK with it. I don't see why not using a brick or rough stone would be a problem, but putting something in their wheel is very iffy. They will run for a REALLY long time, so it's best not to use the wheel for nail filing purposes...

[hedgie girls]

When we first rescued Snuggles she would run all night long and in the morning also. She ran so much that she made her feet bleed, she lost a lot of blood while we were at work. We did not have her wheel lined with anything. Her feet had to be cauterized twice. We now have to line her wheel with a padding to help cushion her feet. We use the art foam sheets.
I am not telling everyone this to get sympathy for Snuggles, but just to show that their pads can be damaged just by them running. Putting sandpaper in the wheel or other rough texture could really tear their feet up.

Snuggles is doing fine and we since put an odometer on her wheel and had many people redo the calculations and we come up with the same figures. She runs anywhere from 2 miles to 17 miles a night.

Cyndy

[hularious]

cyndy,

how'd you set up the odometer on her wheel? i'd be curious to see some sort of graph of her wheeling distance...it'd be a really interesting case study!

[HedgieMate]

we since put an odometer on her wheel and had many people redo the calculations and we come up with the same figures. She runs anywhere from 2 miles to 17 miles a night.
17 miles!? Our hedgie loves to run on his wheel too. We figured he is running 2 to 3 miles a night, and we thought THAT was a lot for a tiny guy like him! Snuggle must be an incredibly fit girl... I just wish I were that athletic! :applause:

[hedgie girls]

Here is a picture of how we hooked it up. Directions for calculating the wheel factor are in the directions with the odometer.

We thought Snuggles was only running 2 to 3 miles a night also. We decided it would be interesting to actually see how far she was running. We were amazed and still are.

[hularious]

cool, what kind of odometer is it and where'd you get it?

[hedgie girls]

The odometer is a Schwinn 17 function cycle computer and is available at Target.