Hedghog food
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I’m opposed to feeding hogs dog/cat food as I cannot support intensive animal farming (caged hens etc.). I’m using a mixture of sunflower hearts, chopped nuts, dried fruit and meal worms: this all gets eaten. That has to be an OK, varied diet. I’d welcome any informed data on meat free diet for hogs. Any thoughts?
Hi nihughes
Unfortunately you have chosen some of the not so good things to feed the hogs. They will eat all sorts of things, which are not necessarily good for them. Dried fruit, is not good for their teeth due to the sugar content and sunflower hearts, chopped nuts and especially dried mealworms have the wrong ratio of calcium to phosphorous. This means that the calcium is leached from the bones. Mealworms are particularly dangerous for hoglets because they are growing.
The following is a link to a video from Vale Wildlife. The beginning is distressing as it shows a hoglet with metabolic bone disease caused by eating mealworms, but it is worth watching past that, because it explains the problem.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZ7Y3a4vgqUThe knowledge about this problem, has only comparatively recently come to light.
I can understand your feeling about cat/dog food. I feed a hedgehog food called ‘I Love Hedgehogs’. It is a mixture of ingredients. It used to contain a very few mealworms, but they have recently improved their recipe and now use calciworms instead, and have removed dried fruit. The hogs still seem to eat it happily, as before. I know there used to be some other similar hog foods, but whether or not others have changed their recipes, I don’t know. I have never had any problem with the hogs eating this food. In fact most of them seem to prefer it, to cat biscuits.
You may find that if you have been feeding mealworms regularly, that you might need to reduce them gradually, because hogs tend to become addicted to them. I do remember someone else on the forum who needed to try to wean the hogs off mealworms, using ‘I Love Hedgehogs’ and found they were able to do it quite easily. So I would try that or another similar food, rather than the hog food which is more similar to cat food (which, anyway, I imagine you would want to avoid as well).
Good luck. I hope you manage to find something the hogs like which is better for them as well.
I used to feed the hedgehogs my cats food which was yarrah organic which is higher welfare, same with the biscuits. Due to another cat coming in the garden I now feed I love hedgehogs food which seems to be enjoyed immensely by the current hog in the garden!
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