# Need other peoples opinion.....



## pixieaki210 (Apr 24, 2013)

Hi,

So when I got my hedgehog in Feb. the breeder told me to contact her when I needed more food. Well it's been 2 weeks and I haven't heard anything back. I have no idea what is in her current mix so I have to create my own now, unless anyone has any other ideas?

Below is the mix I'm thinking of...

1. Natural Balance® L.I.D. Limited Ingredient Diets® Lamb Meal & Brown Rice Small Breed Bites™ Dry Formula (which I would crush to allow AJ to be able to eat it-- I've read that the dog food tends to be hard and large for hedgehogs to eat but I decided to add this because I felt the protein content was too high and cat food offered no alternatives)
this food has 21% protein (if anyone knows of a cat food with this amount let me know), 12% fat, and 4% fiber and from what I can tell does not contain any bothersome products in it.

Link if you want to look at it:
http://www.naturalbalanceinc.com/pr...Rice+Small+Breed+Bites&trade;+Dry+Dog+Formula

2. Royal Canin Veterinary Diet Satiety Support Dry Cat Food
I choose to add this one due to the high fiber that it offers. From what I've read hedgies should be getting a lot more fiber than most cat foods offer and this has been troubling for me... if anyone has other insight on the issue let me know. Just seems like in the wild bugs offer a large amount of fiber which can range up to 15% getting a mix anywhere near that pretty much seems impossible. 
32.5% protein, 7.5% fat, 15.8% fiber
Link:
http://www.petfooddirect.com/product/5688/Royal-Canin-Veterinary-Diet-Satiety-Support-Dry-Cat-Food

3. Blue Buffalo Wilderness Chicken Recipe for Kittens Dry Cat Food
I needed something to increase the fat content in this mix esp since my AJ is very skinny i give him kitten food as a treat tho (the chicken noodle soup soul stuff) and he seems to love it and when it's placed in his bowl its the only thing he eats so I'm afraid that If i put this into the mix that he'll ignore the other two kibbles.

link:
http://www.petfooddirect.com/Produc...th-Kitten-Chicken-And-Brown-Rice-Dry-Cat-Food

If anyone has any suggestions or do you think i should add more than three types let me know


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## definitelydeven (Jul 8, 2013)

I pay most attention to fat and proteins but if you want to consider fiber also I think that choice two is perfect. Has everything you need.


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## pixieaki210 (Apr 24, 2013)

def not enough fat in the second one alone thats why i dont just wanna use it plus if anything happenes where theres a recall its bad just to be giving him that one type of food imho


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## JulieAnne (Sep 3, 2012)

So... your average, if you used all three foods, would be:

Protein: 32.6%
Fat: 14.4% (which is rather high, I think)
Fiber: 8.4% (also kind of high, i think)

With 15% being the max recommended Fat percentage I would think 14.4 would be high, but I could be wrong and 8.4% fiber seems pretty darn high too!

I'm not super experienced with foods, so I could be wrong.


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## definitelydeven (Jul 8, 2013)

I read fat should be no higher than 12 percent. 
I have peaches on purina one indoor advantage cat food.
The vet said its perfect and peaches is healthy but make sure she has fruits/insects in her diet also.


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## Lilysmommy (Jan 7, 2009)

Fiber is actually supposed to be higher for hedgehogs, I've always read. For awhile back when I first had Lily, there was a trend of adding GrapeNuts cereal or baby cereal to food to add more fiber to it, since cat food usually has such low fiber. Insects in the diet help with that though, too.

Remember too, guys, if the hedgehog is skinny or a runner, you actually need the fat to be high!  Sounds like this hedgie could use a higher fat, so the fat being closer to 15% is probably just fine. To the OP - if you're concerned about your hedgehog eating more of the kitten food and ignoring the others, just make the kitten food a smaller amount of the mix. Perhaps you could ration it out better by mixing the first two bags together, then manually adding a certain amount of the kitten kibble each night when you feed him? That way you can better track how much of the kitten kibble he eats and if he needs more/less by his weight fluctuations. 

Also, keep in mind to introduce one food at a time, and do it over a week or two so you don't upset his stomach too much. If he's already on the skinny side, I would introduce that second food last, so he's not eating mainly that one and losing weight.


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