Food recommendations

The following is an article that Laura Hasiuk wrote. This is used with permission from Laura and I want to say, Thanks Laura, for allowing me to post it here.

First of all, most people don't recommend an actual "hedgehog" food for hedgies. The reason is that all of the ingredients that go into hedgie food are more or less crap, and provide very little nutrition for a hedgie. Instead, we recommend a mixture of different high quality cat/dog kibbles. The kibbles should be low in fat (10-20%), and have about 30% protien.

When choosing a food look for something that has a meat as its first ingredient. Stay away from foods that contain-

*by-products (poultry by-product for example are beaks, feathers, feet etc),
*ethoxyquin, BTA, BHT (all three are used as preservatives, and are linked to cancer),
* soybean meal (only humans and pigs can digest this....but if a food does contain it it isnt a HUGE deal)
* fillers (corn, wheat etc). Fillers simply temperarily fill up an animal, but pass right through the bowles with out providing your animal with any nutrience to speak of. Therefore your animal eats more, and poops more.

Try and go for a food that contains a ________ meal (ie chicken meal, poultry meal, fish meal yadda yadda) vs just pain chicken or fish. The difference between a "meal" and just nomral meat is that the meal is cooked and then weighed vs being weighed and then cooked. As Im sure you know when meat is cooked it loses alot of weight in the form of water and fat either burning off or evaporating. Therefore by cooking the meat and then weighing it (like in a meal) you are getting almost 5 times the amount of meat you would otherwise. 66% of the weight of the original meat is lost when it is cooked.

With all that said in many ways dog foods (kibbles) are better for hedgies than cat foods are. The reason is this: cat foods contain higher amounts of Vitamin A (something hedgies dont really need) and less fiber (hedgies need about 15% in their diet). On the other hand, dog foods contain less Vitamin A, and more fiber. The only reaon why most people feed their hedgies cat kibbles instead of dog kibbles is because cat kibbles are usually a more suitable size.

Here are the names of some foods that you can look for to feed your hedgie. Its best to have a mixture of at least 2 different kinds of kibbles to ensure that your hedgie is getting all the nutrition it needs. Also if one of the foods you feed your hedgie is discontinued you wont be forced to switch to a new one cold turkey- you will have the other foods in your mix that are still being made. High Quality kibbles include:

*Buffalo Blue
*Chicken Soup for the Cat Lovers Soul
*Wysong
*Wellness
*Royal Canin Slim 38 (I believe this food is discontinued, but the Royal Canin Lite 37 is more or less the same, only difference is the protien I believe)
*Royal Canin Mini Special 30 (dog kibble-high in fat, use in moderation)
*Nutram (Canadian brand)
*Natural Balance
*Eagle Pack
*Preformatrin Ultra
*Innova

I feed various version of those foods. Most people go for the "lite" or diet versions of those foods, however a combination of both the lite, diet, or senior foods, and just the normal adult. Dont go with kitten, it has too much fat. As long as your hedgie is a good weight there is nothing wrong with some adult food in the mix. If your hedgie starts getting chubby then it may be a good idea to lessen the amount of adult food in the mix, or cut it out alltogether.

As far as the meal worms and butter worms go- those are fine to feed your hedgie. IN MODERATION! Both are high in calories- so go easy with them You can also feed them silk worms, crickets, super worms etc. These should be an ADDITION to the diet of kibbles you are feeding your hog- NOT the main part of their diet.

Most people free feed their hedgies- meaning that they always have kibble in their bowl to eat as they please. Then at night they will give them a small bowl with about a tsp of an "extra". Introduce "extras" slowly, and one at a time. This way if you hedgie gets a sore tummy, runny poops etc- you will have a better idea of what caused it.

Extras include-
-hard boiled eggs, cottage cheese, regular cheese, plain yogurt, mashed potatos, cooked yams, cooked sweet potato, cooked peas, cooked carrots, cooked corn (small amounts only), straw berries, blueberries, different mellons (watermellon, honeydue (sp?), cantolope (sp?) etc), cooked chicken, cooked beef (small amounts, not too often, its fatty) pork (same as for beef), baby foods (chicken, beef, different veggies) and so on.

For switching foods, follow this guideline:

Week 1- 1/4 new food, 3/4 old food
Week 2- 1/2 new food, 1/2 old food
Week 3- 3/4 new food, 1/4 old food
Week 4- All new food

Here are the websites of some of the above foods mentioned, as well as some others that I forgot:

*Blue Buffalo- http://www.bluebuff.com/
*Chicken Soup for the Pet Lovers Soul- http://www.chickensoupforthepetloverssoul.com/
*Eagle Pack- http://www.eaglepack.com/
*Evolve- http://www.evolvepet.com/
*Felidae- http://www.canidae.com/
*Innova- http://www.naturapet.com/display.php?d=home-tab
*Natural Balance- http://www.naturalbalanceinc.com/
*Nutram (Canadian Food)- http://www.nutramonline.com/
*Royal Canin USA- http://www.royalcanin.us/
*Royal Canin Canada- http://www.royalcanin.ca/
*Wellness- http://www.oldmotherhubbard.com/
*Wysong- http://www.wysong.net/

Another commonly asked question is "Where can I buy Chicken Soup for the Pet Lovers Soul?" Here are some places:

*http://www.Petfooddirect.com - http://www.petfooddirect.com/store/...&brand_id=630
*http://www.NationalPetPharmacy.com - http://www.nationalpetpharmacy.com/...31&brand_id=630
*http://www.petluvers.com - http://www.petluvers.com/ChickenSou...FatFormula.html
*Steph (http://www.chins-n-quills.com/forums/member.php?u=6175) is an Authorized Distributor- http://www.cuddlycrittersexotics.com/

Find a distributor near you - http://www.chickensoupforthepetlove...istributors.php

Written by Ashley (Zalea)

Kibble should be the main part of a hedgehog diet. Whether it's cat/dog/hedgehog food, there are certain requirements that should be met to put together a good dry food mix for an African Pygmy Hedgehog.

** Any food should have: about 30% protein, 15-20% fat or less. And it is very important that many of the top 5 ingredients in dry food are meat based.**

Protein is important, but too much can cause kidney failure. Stick close to 30% protein levels. Avoid foods that have more than that (for example, the Wellness CORE foods which have great meat ingredients but 50% protein because of all that meat.)

Fat content should be ideally less than 15% in most of the kibble. A "treat" food in the mix can be a little more if your hedgie is not overweight, but even that treat's content should stay below 20% fat.

Good ingredients

* Chicken, lamb, beef, etc. -- anything listed as the plain and simple animal (avoid anything just labeled "animal" though because you have no way of knowing what that animal is--for all you know, it's roadkill!)
* meal -- meat meals are clean meats from the animal (This does NOT include blood meal)
* "meat and bone meal" -- this is less desirable than the first two, but still acceptable
* carrots, peas, other veggies, nutritional supplements, digestible grains; any of these are acceptable as long as they are the WHOLE product, and are not processed or parts of the food (i.e. beet pulp)
* Vitamin E -- as a preservative

Ingredients to Avoid

* by products, animal digest -- these are the non-muscle parts of an animal (like feathers, beaks, etc in birds)
* "animal fat"
* Blood Meal -- is produced from clean, fresh animal blood, exclusive of all extraneous material such as hair, stomach belchings and urine except as might occur unavoidably in good manufacturing process. You have no way of knowing what type of animal the blood came from or what residues of hormones, medications or other substances are in this product. It has a better use as fertilizer than as a pet food ingredient.
* beet pulp, pea hulls, brewer's rice, wheat gluten
* corn (this includes any kind of corn meal)
* BHA, BHT, Ethoxyquin -- these all cause cancer
* sweeteners (corn syrup, sucrose, propylene glycol...)
* coloring additives
* nuts and seeds

Fiber is essential, as well. This is the difficult part because cats do not need as much fiber in their diet as hedgies. Many people add Grape-nuts cereal or infant rice cereal to the hedgie's mix to give that added fiber boost. Dog foods contain higher fiber, as well. If you can find a dog food that meets the guidelines for cat food and is small enough for hedgie consumption (many aren't, which is the reason cat food is used more commonly), you can try adding that into your hedgie's kibble mix. If you find a great food that you really want to use, but the kibble is too big/hard try breaking it up.

It is better to feed a mix of good ingredient, high-quality foods than just one food. That way if one of the foods is discontinued or the hedgie decides it doesn't like that particular food, there is another food that your hedgie is used to and will eat until you can introduce a new food--and also so that the protein in the diet comes from a variety of sources (i.e. if you have chicken for one, try to get salmon or lamb for another). Most of the foods in the mix should be low fat (15% or less) but if there is not a weight problem or your hedgie requires more fat (very young, pregnant mother, etc--but check with a vet for these first) there can be one with a slightly higher fat content--this should be considered the junk food in the mix, or the "french fries" of their diet. It's basically something that tastes really good that's just in there for a hedgie's enjoyment. A good mix should have at least 2-3 different food brands (some people prefer more). There is an excellent list of cat foods that are suitable for a hedgie's diet in this thread on the Hedgehog Central boards: http://hedgehogcentral.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=15. It was put together by Reaper, and he did a great job. All the foods are hedgie suitable. The most recommended from the list are: Wellness Healthy Weight, Chicken Soup for the Cat Love's Soul Light, and Blue Spa Select Weight Management.

You can often get small samples of the foods from pet stores if you'd like to try them first to see if your hedgehog will like it or not before you invest in a big bag.

When you get a new hedgie, you should ALWAYS talk to the previous owner and find out what the hedgie has been eating, and preferably try to get some of the food from them or go to the store and buy a bag of the same. An abrupt change in food will cause tummy troubles. Even if the food the hedgie was eating before wasn't of the best nutritional value, you should continue to feed it for a week or two while the hedgie settles in, then start the transition to a better food.

You don't want to just immediately start feeding a new food as hedgie digestive systems need time to adjust to new foods. This is a gradual process that will take about a month. Here is the standard procedure for switching from one kibble mix to another:

Week 1: 1/4 new, 3/4 old

Week 2: 1/2 new, 1/2 old

Week 3: 3/4 new, 1/4 old

Week 4: All new


How well this goes depends upon the individual hedgie. Take things slowly. If the hedgie doesn't seem to be taking well to it, try a little longer (i.e. do 1/4 new, 3/4 old for 2 weeks instead of just one, and so forth).

If your hedgie doesn't want to eat the new food, it could be because it doesn't smell like the old food that the hedgie has grown up eating. There are a couple of things you can do.

* You can try mixing the new food and the old food together and seal it up in a ziploc bag. This allows the scents of the food blend together.
* You can grind up some of the old food and sprinkle it on the new food so the new food is masked by the scent of the old food.

Some hedgies will readily eat a new food (it seems to happen a lot in cases where the hedgie has eaten unsuitable commercial hedgehog foods for a long time, and then when presented with kibble will no longer touch the commercial food). Other hedgies will put a new food in their litter pan. It just depends on the individual hedgie, and what they like.