Litter & Supplies
LITTER:
If using fleece or another fabric liner you will want to litter train your hedgehog. It helps with controlling odor in the cage and keeping the liners cleaner longer. Place the litter pan under the wheel because this is the easiest way to litter train a hedgehog since they already go to the bathroom while running on the wheel. The pan will catch a lot of the “run off’” of pee and poop which helps keep the bedding cleaner longer. Place the pan under the wheel and fill it with a pelleted litter, substrate bedding, or paper towels, whichever works best for you and your hedgehog (but pelleted litter usually works best).
Good pelleted litters:
- Equine Pine Bedding Pellets
- Your local farm and feed store like Tractor Supply or Southern States offers a 40lb bag for just $6
- Yesterday’s News Paper Pellets (non scented)
- Sold at most chain pet stores, chewy.com and amazon.com. They are like the equine pine bedding pellets, butmuch more expensive for less pellets.
- Simply Pine
- Also, sold at most chain pet stores, chewy.com and amazon.com. They are like the equine pine bedding pellets, butmuch more expensive for less pellets.
- Substrate bedding- Small Pet Select paper bedding, Kaytee Clean and Cozy, All Living Things paper bedding, aspen shavings, kiln dried pine shavings (NOTE: All substrate bedding options need to be frozen for a minimum of 24 hours, then let thaw to kill off any possible mites. Pellets have a very low chance of containing mites due to the process of how it’s made, it’s essentially burned and the process kills any mites in it. Pellets could get mites in them from the factory, but it’s unlikely to happen).
LITTER PANS:
Carolina Storm has a litter pan you can buy with the wheel, and if not just go to the grocery store, Walmart, or even Home Goods to the baking section, and use a metal non-stick baking sheet or short lipped cake pans for a litter pan. You want a rectangular or large square, rust resistant/ non-stick or plastic pan that is large enough for the wheel's legs to sit in, or for it to go in between the legs. Most 13.5-15”L x 10-11”W x 2-2.5”H non-stick baking pans work well. Some plastic ferret litter pans work too. Just make sure to use a metal baking pan that is a non-stick metal and not aluminum. Aluminum will rust incredibly quickly with washing it. You,also, want to make sure that the pans lip/height is at least 2” tall to keep the litter inside the pan, and it helps keep the hedgehog from kicking the litter out of the pan. But, you don’t want the lip/ height of the pan to be more than 3” tall or they may get frustrated by having to struggle to climb in and out of the pan to go potty since it’s tall. You want to avoid this since they may start to go potty elsewhere in the cage, and this can un-litter train them. You don’t want a corner style litter pan for hedgehogs for a couple of reasons: One, they aren’t animals that usually go potty in corners of the cage like some small animals, they’ll go anywhere, so a corner litter pan wouldn’t make much sense, and Two, if you used a corner litter pan you couldn’t put the wheel inside of it due to the way the wheels stand/legs are it wouldn’t fit in the triangular shape of a corner litter pan.
Some good litter pans: (these pans fit most wheels stands, but make sure to measure your wheels stand before buying them to make sure they’ll fit your wheel)
- MainStays Non-Stick Oblong Cake Baking Pan; Size- 13”L x 9”W x 2”H (LxWxH)
- Marshall High Back Ferret Litter Pan; Size- 14”L x 12”W x 7”H
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