Hi All

Just to give you all a quick overview of the last few weeks.
My wife Julie and I have just joined this board after leaving The Hedgehog Central Forum in disgust; both with a certain so called breeder, and the forum for failing to take any action against her, even they know she is at fault.

I have copied the text bellow from my initial posting on their forum.

We are the owners of the young male hoglet who now has confirmed Ringworm.

We purchased Leo 4 weeks ago. For the first 3 or 4 days we didn’t handle him, allowing him to settle into his new home and surroundings. My wife then started handling him and he loved to nuzzle his way under her blouse and go to sleep on her left shoulder. Two weeks later she began to get a severe itch there, a day later a red ring developed about the size of a 10 pence piece. I urged her to go to the doctor and after her second visit he confirmed Ringworm. She is now undergoing a lengthy treatment with Terbinafine Hydrocloride cream to rid herself of the fungal infection. Apparently there is no quick and easy fix for this infection.

We then looked around for a vet who knew African Pygmy hedgehogs and found one in Liverpool who specialised in Exotics. He first looked at my wife’s symptoms then gloved up and examined Leo in a darkened room under UV light. He said any signs of the fungal infection would basically glow or fluress green. His ears, the back of his head and his back were all covered. The only true way to 100% identify it would be to take a skin scrape but this is not advisable in a young hog. But he said with 99% certainty due to my wife’s condition, his vast experience at seeing Ringworm in other Hogs that his diagnosis is correct.

He also took a stool sample to send away for further examination to check for any internal parasites. This later came back showing a slight internal worm infection.

To look at him he is perfectly fit and well, he shows no visible signs or symptoms of the fungus, although he is always scratching, but we put this down to the fact that he may have started quilling. If my wife had not caught it we would not suspect anything was wrong with the little happy chap.

Now to put the timeframe into perspective as some posters on here have said we have had him far to long and the infection must have come from my daughter as she is of school age.
The problem began to show itself approx 14 days after we began handling him. It took a further week or so before Ringworm was confirmed in my wife and Leo, bringing us up to the 4 weeks since he came home. As far as we can ascertain Ringworm has a 7 to 14 day incubation period so Julie’s first itch ties in perfectly with this.

The treatment for Leo is Itrafungol an oral solution. We have to syringe feed him with this every day for a week, then a week off then a week of treatment again for 5 consecutive weeks.
He is also on anti-inflammatory medication for his ski complaint, (VERY VERY dry and itchy)

We had spent a small fortune on a beautiful house for him and a tunnel and loads of toys to keep him amused and interested. All these as they are natural fibres need to be burned. He is now in a horrible plastic igloo with paper on his cage floor so we can disinfect it daily until he is cured. The carpets and rugs in our house where he has walked need to be sprayed monthly with a fungicide. We can only handle him until he is cured with surgical gloves which then need to be destroyed. A dilute bleach wash that Shell told us to use apparently will do nothing to the fungus it needs a correct fungicidal wash in our case F10SC which is a specialist veterinary disinfectant used to kill the most resistant viruses, fungi, yeasts and bacteria such as PBFD and Parvovirus.

Having found out how serious and contagious this problem is we feel it’s our duty to pass on our experiences to members of this board. We have tried repeatedly to get her to acknowledge the fact that she could have passed the infection to us but she is now saying we may have taken the infection to her house when we collected Leo.
She was specifically asked by myself and other posters on this thread if she has any problems with any of her herd. She replied definitely no at every occasion.
She said she could not have ringworm in her stock as she worms her hogs regularly. We told her Ringworm is a fungal infection not an internal worm. (AND THIS FROM A LADY WHO CLASSES HERSELF AS A MASTER BREEDER). Blah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The vet said Leo most likely caught it at birth due to the severity and spread of the infection.
We now find that the owner of Pickles, another male from the same litter owned by a member of this board is also suffering with strikingly similar problems. Her Hog also arrived with what was an open wound on his nose.

At the time of collecting Leo we asked for his Birth certificate, pedigree or certificate, she said she would fill it in and post it out the same day.
Guess what! We now find she is not registered with the British society so cannot supply the correct paperwork and poor old Leo will remain unregistered.

Bellow is a picture of my wifes infection, Leo just about to take his medication and of the breeders hands just after she denied she has a problem.


If anyone wishes to contact us re this matter or to see a photograph of the infection please feel free to email us at Ianandjulie2000@blueyonder.co.uk.

Ian & Julie






HH's hand

Yes you all might of seen Pickle with his big scab on his nose bless him, well at the time I posted the pics i said i knew about this as didnt want to start a hedgie war or really get involved but now having seen the bigger picture i decided i would as it now effects me directly as i also now have a nice patch of ring worm on the in side of my wrist and that i wasnt told that Pickle had any scab what so ever when i had gone to get him and then quite surprised to find he had one! And it wasnt small or pretty! Thankfully it has now dropped off and he is fine. With no marks, but now im worried of going anywhere near him due to the fact i own a lot of animals and most live in the same room (as we are re decorating what is the mousery) so they have all been in the same room and still currently are so for now im just feeding him but not touching or getting him out to play what so ever, untill i can get him sorted out, unfortunatly my vet knows nothing about hogs, i have seen there are some members here from in and around Bristol so if anyone knows of one localy to Clevedon please let me know..

Chaz

does she not register her hogs then?

Hello Ian and Julie I am glad you got over here,

It would appear not, she just lies her way through the situation.

Ian

Thats awful I thought she advertised all her hogs as registered what a pity, can that not be a trading standards issue also

Here is Ian and Julies photos of there Leo and Julies ringworm (hope you guys dont mind noticed your phots didnt come up in your post so i thought id add them for you.











And photo of Pickle with his scab and my wrist with the ringworm.

ouch!!! stupid question time : how do hogs actually get ringworm in the first place??

That's horrible!!

I hope you guys are going to be chasing for vet fees at the very least - though to be honest, you shouldn't even have to ask - I mean, she's the one that keeps on about her millionaire parents, a couple of vet fees shouldn't be any problem for her and if it is, then surely they could loan her some of their wealth!!

edit: I would assume that HH's hogs have got it from her imported hogs.... but we all know that she did of course put them through quaranteen (heavy on the sarcasm!) so they would of course have had numerous health checks!!

We first rang Shell on the 5th of November to notify her of our concerns and to ask if any of her other owners were showing similar symptoms.
first day seemd very sympathetic and concerned this quickly turned to the defensive and saying if her hogs were infected we had taken it down to her as her hygein is second to none.
Well truth is and I dont know if any other owners have been to her house. The house is FILTHY and I mean filthy. We had driven 250 miles to collect Leo but refused to sit down as the sofa was disgusting. There was what appeard to be a quilt cover on the sofa and it was full of what looked like urine stanes from the dogs or cats. and the cages were far from clean. We just grabbed Leo and ran. We had to wipe our feet as they seemd to be sticking to the floor as we walked. We were in and out within 10 minuits.

Chaz could you post a picture of Shells hand for me please. As yet I cant manage to post pics.

Ian

http://www.reptileforums.co.uk/other-pets-exotics/211748-super-friendly-aph-litter.html


Heres the referred to post... and i think we was all happy at that time as had only had them about a week! And did not know what they were carrying...Grrr!

She posted that on the 11th!!

Which means she knew that Ian and Julie were not happy!!

I actually thought that any info about her home would come back shining - but only because I thought she would put in the effort to make sure bothher home and her animals were spotless knowing that I for one (and I make no attempts to hide the fact!) watch very carefully to pick up on all of her lies and mistakes!! - But hey, maybe 'humble' (that's how she describes her home!) in HeavenlyHog Land actually means minging!!

I've seen the photo's of her hand too.... execema my @*#!

thanks to both of you posting about this,

was just gonna point out that post was after she had found out about it,

if i was you 2 i would go post over on rfuk that you are not happy about the situations and what has gone on

and i have to say i was discussed at her attitude over on hog central and i thank you very much for the information you have provided,

This is her hands.. i cant remember what condition she called it .. but it doesnt look right to me thats just asking for infections ect should be gloved when dealing with animals in my eyes..


I was also told by her that her german imports were kept at hers and not in quarentine, because she didnt have to or something oh i dunno shes told me so many a thing my brains fried!