A hedgehog's diet!

Hedgies eat a variety of food. In the wild, they eat berries, frogs, baby birds if fallen out of their nest, snails, small lizards, eggs, worms, grubs and many more. Their diet is mainly high in protein.

As pets, they need a good high protein diet that is low in fatnot more than 10%). So brands like Inova Evo is good, protein is 50%. Other brands must be holistic premium food like Felidae, Natural Balance, Evolve, Chicken soup for cat lover's soul and eagle pack. Remember, hedgehogs cannot have corn gluten or corn meal and chicken by-products coz it may cause fatty liver disease in them(brands like Iams)... read this somewhere.

They love to eat bananas and soft fruits. One can also feed them baby Gerber food that you get from supermarkets. Hedgehogs also can eat canned dogfood and canned catfood make sure the ingredients are natural and holistic.

They can also eat cooked mince beef and chicken but with no seasoning and no oil. Eggs have to be hardboiled.

Once a while, offer them treats like earthworms, mealworms and beetles. They LOVE beetles. Mine likes to crunch on them. Do not catch the bugs you find in your garden if you have sprayed pesticides before. Best is to get your supply from a petshop or find them in clean chemical-free areas.

I still have a lot to learn. There are no books on hedgehogs in the market now so I have to learn from people who have hedgehogs and experience. Will update this thread with more info later with a list of what they can eat and what they can't.

hi crazymouse,

good info on hedgie diet. like to add on if u dun mind. Cos they are really prone to obesity, an exercise wheel wud be a good addition, however have to make sure that the wheels come with a solid base if not the little feet of these cute fellas might get injured in 1 way or another. another alternative wud be to have a realli large enclosure but im quite sure most of us cant afford the space.

Did some running around and found that most brands of cat food only have a protein level of about 25 -30%. the highest i have noticed so far is from solid gold with a 32% of protein and a min of 10% crude fat in their analysis. Innova evo seems good with a 50 % protein level.

Hi jediknight,

Yes, they do need a wheel. I haven't bought one yet coz I'm scouting for a resonable one. Only 1 o 2 petshops in KL sell chinchilla wheels and it's like RM60 for one wheel!!! Hedgehogs do need to have exercise. I don't have a wheel yet so everynight my Sparky gets to have the whole living room to himself for about an hour. Then it is back into his box which is still spacious enough for him to walk about.

Thank you for your info on catfood.

Hedgehogs also can take dogfood, provided that there is no corn meal or corn glutten.

I'm currently feeding my hedgehog on:

Chicken Soup for the Dog Lover's soul
Evovle dog's adult formula
Go Natural cat food
Royal Canin BabyCat

Giving a mixture of 3 types of food is better than only feeding one coz each kibble has different ingredients and vitamins and since there isn't any hedgehog food available in the market, catfood and dogfood comes close to their diet.

Actually, there is an excellent book on hedgy care written by Antigone Means-Burleson.

Here's her website.

http://hedgehogvalley.com/

Hi wktam

Thank you for recommanding the book. From the table of contents, it is certainly very informative. Thank you for the link too. I think I will order a book. It is hard to find books on hedgehog care.

You are quite welcome. Antigone (Tig) is one of the top US hedgy breeders and knows her stuff. I used to be a moderator on the US forum Chins-N-Quills. While I am a chin owner, I learned a bit about hedgys from my days on that forum.