# Best hedgehog food?



## busteroo (Feb 8, 2016)

I have been feeding my hedgie with indoor blue buffalo for about 7 months now and He was fed it from his breeder as well. He started losing quills, and has dry dry skin so i took him to the vet. He thinks he needs more of a varied diet. He suggested Mazuri, but their first ingredient is CHICKEN BY PRODUCT! no way thats better then the Blue Buff! So what do you guys suggest for the best results in having good skin, quill growth, and over all health? what do you use to vary the diet?


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## FinnickHog (Dec 1, 2014)

Mazuri is definitely not your best option.

Take a look at this: http://www.hedgehogcentral.com/foru...3034-beginner-s-guide-hedgehog-nutrition.html

And since you know your ingredients, this might be worthwhile too, depending on how far down the rabbit hole you want to go: http://www.hedgehogcentral.com/forums/12-diet-nutrition/114530-advanced-nutrition-guide.html

Basically, we can give you some ideas, and pros and cons we've personally experienced, but it's up to you to decide what exactly your hedgie needs. They're all a bit different so they need different ingredients to a degree.

It sounds like your hoggie could benefit from the addition of a few drops of coconut oil (or olive oil, or flaxseed oil, etc) on his food to help with his skin. Just drop a few drops on, shake, and serve. You can also dab it right onto his skin with a dropper, and it'll get smeared around either by him manually or by him playing.

Did the vet do a skin scrape and check for mites/fungus/bacteria? Putting oil on a hedgehog that has a fungal infection will make the fungus worse, so if you're not sure, just put it on his food.

If you have any more questions after doing your reading assignment, go ahead and ask!


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## busteroo (Feb 8, 2016)

He has been treated for mites already, and it is no longer an issue for sure, (he's pretty bald, and quilling). I just want him to be healthy as possible. I know he needs more fiber and I feed him meal worms for that, but I will probably need more as well. He also mentioned that he needs a taurine supplement which helps with his skin health and quill growth? is this true?


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## FinnickHog (Dec 1, 2014)

I saw your prior posts after I replied here . If the vet thinks he's just dry skinned, I'd go ahead with a bit of oil on his food and on his skin. If you're worried about taurine, you can supply it by feeding high quality pet foods, as almost all meats contain some levels of taurine, no matter the type.

Here's a quote:
"Animal meat is a good source of taurine. A variety of large animals, including birds and insects, all contain taurine. Mechanically deboned beef contains about 197 mg taurine per kilogram of dry weight. Beef liver contains about 2.359 g taurine per kilogram of dry weight. Lamb contains about 3.676 g taurine per kilogram of dry weight and chicken liver contains about 6.763 g taurine per kilogram of dry weight, according to a UC Davis study reported in the "Journal of Animal Physiology" in 2003."

So as long as he's getting good ingredients, he's getting taurine. You could also add a few drops from fish oil pills onto his food, and that would definitely get him an increased dose. Use the salmon ones if you can since there's more taurine in salmon than in krill. You can also offer him a variety of live insects: mealworms, waxworms, roaches, crickets, pretty much anything, and they'll all have decent taurine levels too.

If you want to revamp his diet to be as healthy as possible, you could also switch to raw foods, kind of like people do with some dogs and cats, or you could try a hybrid diet with raw foods and wet cat foods. Here's a few threads on that:

http://www.hedgehogcentral.com/forums/12-diet-nutrition/128865-bindi-s-raw-diet.html
http://www.hedgehogcentral.com/forums/12-diet-nutrition/129409-skink-hedgehog-chow.html

The second one is a fresh food/canned catfood hybrid that I feed my hedgie and skink. If you have any questions about that let me know. The really helpful stuff is on page 1, and it'll show what the best stuff to increase fiber is that I found (second post). The other one is by Kelsey (Lilysmommy) and if you leave her a question here or in a pm about her hog diet she'll get back to you fairly quickly.

Long story short, as long as you're feeding high quality, not overly processed proteins, your guy will be getting taurine. If you want to try to increase his taurine intake, try fresh cooked meats like chicken breast (or even better, liver) grilled in a pan and chopped, or punctured fish oil pills on his food.

That being said, too much taurine could cause damage to his heart and liver, so if your vet sells you a supplement, make sure you get the right dosage. If you go with chicken you'll be fine, and if you go with fish oil, 1-4 drops a meal is safe.


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## Hedgehog Swag (Feb 19, 2016)

I started following and learning the general concepts of Binid's Raw Diet. To me you can take a lot of the guess work out of processed cat food this way. Scrizzie now eats only live insects including mealworms super worms, crickets and Dubai roaches supplemented with fruits and veggies.


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## Lilysmommy (Jan 7, 2009)

I always show up on the food threads. :lol: And always talk a lot, so here goes!

The meat in kibble doesn't actually have taurine content anymore - taurine is a very sensitive thing & the cooking process destroys it. It also degrades over time when frozen. Cat kibble has taurine added to it and dog food doesn't because dogs can make it themselves, whereas cats can't & need it from their diet. I think in the 70's or 80's, there were mass cases of cats dying & they discovered that it was due to lack of taurine, so they started adding it to the food. So if you're feeding cat kibble, then he's already getting taurine for sure. As Ashley mentioned, if you feed cooked or raw meat or insects, that will be additional taurine. I would definitely go with that method over an actual supplement - I was told that taurine is excreted through urine & it's hard to overdose cats (when supplementing for a raw diet), but anything can be overdosed & it's much easier with small animals like hedgehogs. We also have no evidence that hedgehogs require it from their diet as I think people have fed only dog food before with no issues. But I don't think that has been many people, so it's probably still more or less an unknown. Hedgehogs aren't really obligate carnivores like cats though, so I wouldn't expect that they would.

I'm also kind of wondering on the vet's reasoning for saying taurine is needed for dry skin & quill growth. I wonder if they were thinking of a different amino acid or something, because I'm reading up on taurine again & there's nothing regarding skin or hair in the list of things it helps with. It plays a role in the cardiovascular system, muscles, eyes, and central nervous system.

Anyway, that all aside, I would ignore the taurine thing specifically and just focus on supplementing meat, insects, fruits, & veggies and add in some oil for his skin & quills. I agree with salmon oil - krill oil is unsustainable & not a good industry to support. Personally I check out the company when looking for fish oil for a couple reasons - a) sustainable fishing practices, b) quality of the oil (you can look for third party reports on the purity of the oil & if there are any contaminants like mercury), and c) freshness of the oil. It's easiest to get capsules with hedgehogs because they need such a small amount, but it's also more common for oil in capsules to already be rancid before you even buy them, and it's harder to check for freshness. If you don't have time or want to bother with checking on all of that, I use the brand New Chapter & liked what I found on them. Expensive, but worth it IMO.

In addition to mine & Ashley's raw diet threads, here's the sticky that gives an overview on what to include & things to consider - http://www.hedgehogcentral.com/forums/12-diet-nutrition/23066-raw-home-cooked-diets.html I firmly believe the most important thing to keep in mind with a raw or cooked diet is variety and/or balance. The worst commercial food is still better than an unbalanced home-made diet. If you're going to keep a limited variety of foods in the diet, you need to research them & ensure that your hedgehog is still getting all of the necessary nutrients in sufficient amounts. This is hard to do with insects as we have less complete nutritional information on most of them than we do meat & other foods that we typically eat in the western world. My solution was to go for as big of a variety as I have reasonable access to, and double check through research that I'm getting all of the important things included.

If you're not interested in doing a full raw diet, that's totally fine. I would suggest adding in a couple more types of kibble to your hedgehog's food to give better variety, plus supplementing the fish oil. And it's always good to offer fresh meat, fruits, veggies, and insects just as treats and supplements to a kibble diet, so that's a great option too! Basically as long as the diet is balanced (commercially or otherwise), what you feed your hedgehog comes down to what you're comfortable with and have time & money for.


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