Bathing my hedgehog too often? Your hedgehog should always have access to food while active. You should also clip your hedgehog's nails after a bath, as they'll be soft and easy to trim.

“A healthy hedgehog should always be bright, alert and responsive,” says Stacey Leonatti Wilkinson, DVM, at Avian & Exotic Animal Hospital of Georgia, Pooler, Georgia.

To give your hedgie a foot bath, you can line the bottom of a bathtub with a few washcloths and add 1/2″ of warm water. Fill a utility sink, bath tub or large sink with very warm/hot water and detergent such as Dawn (my personal choice). Tweezers should be used to remove any particles that can be seen within the quills. Most people feel their hogs ad-lib, which means they put the food in the bowl and let the hedgehog decide how much to eat.

It's fairly easy to bathe your hedgehog with the right equipment and a little patience.

I am aware that you should bathe your hedgie no more than once a month to prevent dry/flaky skin. Since hedgehogs often go potty while running on their wheel, these dirty feet are given the name “poopy boots”. Pickup your hedgehog and hold them while you empty the sink of the bath water. This is my recommended hedgehog cage cleaning process: Start by dumping out the bedding into a trash bag or compost. Making sure the water is at the right temperature coming out of the faucet, I then rinse the hedgehog directly under that water, ensuring I move the quills around to get all shampoo off of them. If they go to the bathroom on their wheel, you may need to give them a foot bath once a week to clean their feet. Hedgehogs are generally clean pets, but they sometimes require a bath. 10. Hedgehogs do not like change! Draw a bath with warm water and add some shampoo. The detergent should remain the same each and every time that you clean the cage.

You should handle your hedgehog for at least 30 minutes a day to ensure that he is getting socialization and has time to bond with you. Before bathing, your hedgehog will need a thorough grooming.

Instead of a full bath, sometimes a foot bath is all that is necessary. These energetic mammals sleep during the day and are active at night, often sniffing when walking around and exploring. Using an appropriately sized toothbrush, dip the brush into warm water and clean the quills in a front to back motion. This is 1-2 inches of warm water in the sink or tub. Some hedgehogs will eat pinkie mice. Quickly rinse the sink of excess bubbles and dirt. After this process, the hedgehog can be given a toothbrush bath. Some people feed once a day, others twice a day.

If you need to give your hedgehog a full bath, add another inch or so of water and use a toothbrush to scrub their quills. If your hedgehog begins to become aggressive, shaking, starts biting you, or you notice green poop, this is a sign that he’s becoming stressed and had …

Just let them walk around in it. 9.