Mites for the first time :(

K, it's official. We have mites. My question is this. Khaki is loosing her quills at an alarming rate. I can actually see the thinning on her back when I roll her up. Explains her not running, being grumpy(er) etc. Since she's lost so many quills, will they grow back??? When I looked and saw her fleece liner today I almost cried there were so many quills on it. It absolutely breaks my heart. Is she going to be ok? I couldn't afford the revolution from the vet, so I overnighted it from petmeds. Will my babies be ok??? So far Mace isn't showing signs of mites other than lack of running, but I'm treating him too. I'm so worried!!

They usually grow back. Occasionally they may not grow back as thick, and on rare occasions they won't grow back at all. But typically they grow back in after the mites have been treated. When they do grow back, expect an overly grouchy hedgehog as those quills hurt when they come back.

Here is a picture of her back and how many are on her fleece liner. Are there any lasting issues with mites? I haven't seen anything on what I've read, just to treat her with revolution and not ivermectin. I feel like the worst momma ever!

As long as you treat them and catch them fairly early, mites are not that big of a deal. She will likely continue to lose quills even after treatment as she will shed the damaged quills. She may get a fairly bald spot due to it.

I've seen plenty who had fairly large bald spots with full coats of quills later.

Just monitor her condition. If she should get pustules around the base of her quills get her back to the vet. They are not common, but on rare occasions mites have been blamed for secondary bacterial infections.

Thank you Kalandra. I've been panicking all night!

Khaki, get well soon!

UPDATE! Khaki is now growing in quills thank goodness! I can see the baby quills coming in through the skin poor thing. She had a hard enough quilling, and now she has to go through it again! She's all huffypants again, but I understand this time and know how to deal with it. She hasn't been wheeling though, and she's a wheel-a-holic. She'd wake up at 5:30 AM for her midnight run, and wake up at 7 PM and run all night. Is this just part of getting over mites?

Also, the vet said that if the mite treatment didn't work that he thought it may be allergies. (the second time I brought her there, he couldn't see any mites in her skin scraping) Is that something you have seen?

Allergies are a possibility. Tracking down a food allergy can be difficult. Another possibility is a skin infection. How does her skin look? Is it dry flakey, any redness or pustules around the base of the quills?

Her skin is dry, usually pretty flaky. If I put some vitamin E on it, it stops being flaky for a while, but then comes back in about a week. I feed them the blue buffalo yellow bag of food. How in the world do I possibly narrow that down? As of now I haven't seen more than 1 or 2 quills when I play with her, but she still won't wheel. I miss the pitter patter of her little feets.

Oh, but no, there aren any swollen quills or pustules or anything. Especially on her back where she lost all her quills. That part of her skin actually looks pretty healthy.

Whoah on the post overload, but I wanted to excitedly say that for the first time in a whole, Khaki has been up for about an hour, running, playing with her tube, eating and throwing her litter. Yay! I think she just went back to bed, but that one hour is more than I've seen her do in about a month.

helpppp.

i just found out my hedgie has mites. he got his from a bad batch of bedding he has dry skin and his quills are just falling off one bye constantly.. it makes me cry. once he is fully treated what should i keep on him, if anything, to prevent this again? also, how long til his quills may grow back after all the mites are gone?

Particulate bedding (like shavings) can be a problem. I would toss out any un-used bedding and super-clean the area in which it was kept - vacuuming and scrubbing as is appropriate.

In the future, I'd steer clear of things like shavings. Instead, use fleece cage liners. They don't harbor mites, won't go "bad" with mold, rot or mites, and can be cleaned for re-use. You can get started with the fleece now. Actually, I'd recommend making the change now. You don't want to get in the situation where you've killed the mites that were on hedgie, but then hedgie keeps getting them back because they are living/hiding in the bedding.

You'll want to treat him with Revolution. The standard regimen is to treat once every two weeks over the course of six weeks for a total of three doses. You'll put a drop or two behind his head, near his shoulders, then wrap the rest up super-super-tight... it will dry up on you if you don't. Repeat in two weeks. And repeat in another two weeks.

You'll continue to see some quills drop even after he's had his first and second doses... maybe even the third depending on how severe the mite situation has been. The ones that keep dropping after he's had his meds will be the quills that were already damaged by the mites. You should see the beginnings of quills growing back in very soon. It will take between a few weeks to few months (depending on how bad the situation was) before they're grown in all the way.