Dried insects with good Ca:P ratio
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Hi WildCaz
I think it is to do with the mix and the nutrition of the total food, rather than the fact that it might contain a few mealworms, sunflower hearts, etc. If you look at the pictures you can see that there are very few of any of these. I don’t think anyone is saying you shouldn’t feed any of these things at all. The problem is if people are only feeding mealworms, sunflower hearts, peanuts or a mixture of things which all have the wrong CaP ratio or too much of them. In very small quantities and combined with other things it can balance out.
The other thing to remember is that these days people keep exotic hedgehogs as pets and some of these foods are probably aimed at them. Possibly the banana chips? Don’t know.
The very best thing we can do for them is to improve and expand the habitat of the wild hedgehogs so that they can find their own wild food. Anything we feed them should only be a supplement. Unlike when they are at Rescues it should not be the only food they eat. So, yes, if we are going to feed them, give them the very best things we can, but not so much that they become reliant on us or the food we put out. I wonder if people are actually leaving too much food out so that the hogs rely on that too much, rather than go and hunt for food for themselves. If they are only using what we feed as a supplement it becomes less important that we get it absolutely right. And we are not going to get it absolutely right. Let’s face it we are not going to follow loads of hedgehogs to see what they eat and then go out and catch those things to feed them. And it would make no sense to do that. There is no food, I imagine, cat/dog food or hedgehog food which accurately mimics what they would eat in the wild. Help them to catch their own food by providing the right habitat. They know what they need better than us – they have been around for millions of years!
WildCaz. The last bit of my previous post was supposed to be some general thoughts, rather than aimed specifically at you. Sorry I didn’t make that clearer!
Yes I agree, supplementary is the operative word here. I feed according to their needs so to speak. If I have food left over for two or three nights running, I reduce the amount. If all gone over the same period then I increase the amount that they have. Also I am not so keen at cutting the grass like I used to, that will attract more beetles and things into the garden that are more natural for them to eat. Just small changes can make a big difference.
Willpar.
Hi Nic, I got you :). I’m going to try some of the mix and the biscuits and see what happens. I’m thinking of trying dried calci worms too ( https://www.chubbymealworms.co.uk/collections/dried-calci-worms-1 )
My garden is a tip, perfect habitat! I don’t put that much food out, and what I do gets shared with the foxes.
Hi WildCaz
Good luck with the new food trials.
Talking about gardens and their value for wildlife. Did you see on TV ‘The British Garden’ with Chris Packham, etc. They were looking at about 5 different gardens and were expecting the overgrown one would have the most diversity. In fact, it turned out that it had the least, but what they didn’t go into was the quantities of the different species. So I suppose the overgrown garden could still potentially be a better food source, with just not so much variety of different species. They seemed to think the main differing factor was there were more flowers in the other gardens. The one that came out top was one which had hedges, fruit trees, etc. but wasn’t too tidy and had wild areas, but was not overgrown.
The other interesting thing was they were identifying the foxes by their facial markings. I expect a lot of people think all foxes look the same, like they do with hedgehogs.
Penny glad to hear your new hog hole is working well. There are some hogs here who seem to be expert at avoiding the cams too. Certain ones seldom, if ever get caught by the cams. Not sure how they manage it!
Willpar. Coincidence you should mention letting the lawn grow a bit longer. I have been doing the same. There is a fair bit of clover and I thought it was a shame to deprive the bees of it. The hoglets, in particular seem to be liking it and they have been caught on the cams several times foraging on it.
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