Hedgehog Tails

[Kitty878]

Phew. Just looked at the vale trust thing again and it says very slightly increased calcium (ie 1.5:1.1) may be beneficial to young hogs as good for bones. So the cat food should be fine. I’d not seen it before because it was under puppy food and I was looking at cat food. The calci worms is probably still too much though. I’m so relieved, was properly freaking out then!

[Kitty878]

IvanB, it’s nice to hear you’ve got cats too! It’s so much easier to feed hedgehogs when you have cats as you always have the food on hand. Although I don’t think they appreciated me stealing a handful from their bowl to put out for the hoglets!

I have three cats as well. Mine do have outdoor access, but only to the back garden, I’ve got a special fence up to keep them in, which is also an advantage for the hedgehogs as no other predators can get into my garden. The cats are hilarious with the hedgehogs, they watch them and follow them around but run away if they get too close, they have clearly been prickled before! They even treated the tiny hoglets with the same wary respect. They seem to have got used to the terrible dichotomy of small furry creatures that can’t be eaten or even played with.

[IvanB]

Hi Kitty878

So, it looks like calci worms have a slightly larger calcium to phosphorous ratio. The big problem with mealworms, seems to be that there is so much phosphorous, that it leads to a loss of calcium.

So, this explains why specialist hedgehog food (including Spikes) include some calci worms in the mix.

It’s a bit like the Parmesan you sprinkle on pasta. As long as the volume is low, it should be fine. Finding the calcium and phosphorus content seems to be a challenge for the cat biscuits, but I found this about calci worms:

https://www.agrigrub.co.uk/reptile-health

So, I think we are going with hog food with a few calci worms and cat biscuits mixed in. Helga is still going out hunting, so she is not reliant on the food we are putting out. Some of the early footage I managed to get of her, showed a brutal snail assassination (there were only small bits of shell left).

[Nic]

Hi IvanB

Feeding hedgehogs is really not at all complicated as long as you stick to cat, dog or hog food. The problem only arises when people think they need to give them extra treats on top of that. They do not need extra treats, cat, dog or hog food is treat enough for them. Anything else is problematical as there are so many things not good for them.

The best thing to do is to make your garden as wildlife friendly as possible, encourage your neighbours to do likewise and make sure several gardens are linked. That way the hogs have plenty of wild natural food available to them as well.

[Author]

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