Quilling...when do they start?

[Michelle (:]

Mel has been loosing and getting quills in the last couple of weeks (hes about 12 weeks old now) and I'm starting to find less and less in his cage. Has he already gone through it? I have pics from when I first got him and him now and his quills are much more filled in, you cant even see his skin like I use to be able to. Theyre also a different color than before and he has a lot of solid white ones now. Do they go throught it just once, or multiple times? I know I should know this stuff, but I was reading through a ton of threads and cant find it anywhere!

9 weeks old:

12 weeks old:

 

[StarstruckAngel]

What I understand from my research is that major quilling only happens once at around 1 year of age. After that to see a few quills lost is totally normal, but a whole patch is a sign of illness.

 

[Nancy]

Young babies are in a almost constant stage of quilling. Often when a baby goes to his new home he is quilling with his 5-6 week quilling. These are tiny little fine quills but very sharp.

Their adult quilling and the one that generally affects their temperament the most usually starts between 9 & 12 weeks but can start up to about 16 weeks.

Some hedgehogs will go through an another adult quilling at roughly a year. Not all will in fact more don't than do.

 

[ChiLover]

That's about the same age as my Heidi who is quilling now

 

[PetoftheDay]

I just wanted to say he's a very handsome boy! Nice picture, too - and the close-up of him now is impressively dense with quills!