# Am I feeding to much?



## Hollys helper (Nov 6, 2018)

Hi,

Holly is a little over weight and the vet advised last week that we try and get it down a little. This is something I have been trying to do for months but there is not much progress. Holly is quite a lazy hog which I don’t think helps progress.

Below is an idea of what I feed Holly, please could I have input on wether I’m giving to much/little or what other tweeks I can make.

I want her to have the most balanced and varied diet I possibly can.

Daily I give:

10g Kibble - she eats anything up to 10g, will eat more if available.
10-20g fruit or veg (cherries, watermelon, peas, sweet corn, broccoli, apple, kale)
30 insects - a combination of locusts, crickets, Dubai roach (I vary the combination)

Twice a week she has 10g of Turkey or Beef mince with 10g fruit or veg

She has 2 - 4 worms 3 x a week, i include these in daily insect allowance not in addition. She has Mealworms, wax worm, Mori o worms. I haven’t introduced others as I know they are fatty.

She won’t eat any wet cat food or eggs.

Is this to much? What changes do you suggest?

Thank you in advance


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## Aj.t (Jan 29, 2019)

Hey there! The dry kibble and insects sound like a good ratio. Are you feeding a mix of kibbles in her dry diet? What’s the total fat content? 20-30g of fruits/veggies every day isn’t the best. As insectivores, they have a fairly small digestive tract that isn’t equipped for processing large amounts of plant matter, especially every day. These are recommended as occasional snacks only. All together, everything does seem like a bit much to me. Try cutting down on the amount you give first rather than completely getting rid of something or switching something. 
Hope this helps 🙂


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## Hollys helper (Nov 6, 2018)

Thank you for the reply.

I am using a mix of two foods as it’s all I can find that she will eat. The total fat content is 12.5, Protein 32.5.

I will start to reduce fruit and veg. Other than that what would be the next thing to reduce?

Thanks


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## Emc (Nov 18, 2018)

10g of kibble + 20g of veg/fruit + 30 insects is far too much food. _Especially_ for a hedgehog who is already lazy.

As Aj.t mentioned, hedgehogs are not equipped to handle large volumes of fruit & veg. Most of the fruit & veg they consume is through feeder insects that have been gut loaded so not only is your hedgehog consuming up to 20g of fresh fruit and veg, but she's getting then some on top of that through the insects she's eating. You can feed a small amount (note; around a teaspoon) of fresh fruit & veggies 1-2 times a week if you wish - it does provide them with beneficial fibre and nutrients, vitamins, and minerals but it's important to keep it as an occasional add in vs a component of a daily diet. I tend to stick to cooked veggies, as it's easier for them to digest. Fruit should be fed sparingly, and I would keep it to a once a week snack.

The kibble is fine at 10g, but you need to cut down on the amount of insects you're feeding to 10-15. On days where she gets 10g of meat, feeder closer to 10 insects (or less).


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## Hollys helper (Nov 6, 2018)

Thank you, I will start reducing as suggested. I’m hoping she will get a little more active if she looses a bit of weight with the right balance in her diet.


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## Ria (Aug 30, 2018)

My Holly is on a diet too.
She's given 14g of biscuit which she eats 7-9g of never more than 10g of it. And the fat is 11.2% and protein is 29.7%
For you I'd leave it at 10g as you said she'll eat more if offered. The fat and protein of yours seems to be good.

Holly gets 14 insects a day in two mixes that I alternate. She has locust, Dubai roaches, crickets, orange woodlice(isopods) and calci worms.
The only one of these thats really fatty is the calci worms but because they are good for calcium and and fibre she only gets 4 every other day too anyway.
So for you probably best to bring it down to 15 (slowly decrease by 1 or 2 a day) 

I use insects that I gut loaded and froze, then thawed out and left hidden around her cage to make her that bit more active as she needs to actually find her insects. 
Using live always makes them more active too but you cant really leave them in over night haha. 

Holly also then gets 5g cooked meat once a week, 5g cooked meat and veg once a week, and 5g scrambled egg (no milk ect) once a week (always on a Saturday)
The meat actually helps Holly loose weight believe it or not.

You can leave it at 10g meat, i would do 1 day 10g cooked meat and 1 day 5g cooked meat with 5g cooked veg, to total 10g cooked meat and veg. And then another day of 5g fruit. 

And then she gets a bit fruit once a week. Sometimes less depending on what fruit we have at the time. 

Shes not what you'd class as lazy, but shes not the most active, she is active for an average of 4 hours a night.

Not sure if you know it but they can lose 20g a week healthily, but its preferred to loose 10g a week.


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## Hollys helper (Nov 6, 2018)

Thank you Ria, that’s is really helpful. I will get started tonight with the reduction and see how we go. I weigh her weekly so will keep a eye to make sure she isn’t loosing weight to quickly.


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## Ria (Aug 30, 2018)

I have a spreadsheet too, so that I could play with different ratios of the to see different ways to make the fat or protein higher or lower if needed but without adding or changing any food.

I've also got a spreadsheet with the date, her weekly weight, how much food she was given and what she she was given, how much she ate of each and overall. How many insects given and what insects they were.
This helps for seeing exactly what is helping with loosing weight.

If once you've lowered everything else (not the biscuit) with the 10g of the meat and 10g meat and veg its not changing anything, take it down to 5g meat, and 5g meat and veg - I do 3g meat and 2g veg. And see if that makes a difference.


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## Ria (Aug 30, 2018)

So for example this would be my plan:
For the reduction I would take 2g fruit and veg out and 2 insects out daily. 
This way you can reduce faster, but not too fast, and its not a huge change to stress her out.
Once you got the insects to 14-15 insects then you stop decreasing the insects.
The fruit and veg should come down to 10g so 5g of each, then come down so its not fed daily. 
Then bring it to 5g cooked veg with 5g cooke meat once a week, 10g cooked meat once a week and then 5g fruit once a week.

So that the diet is then 10g biscuit, 14/15 insects daily with 10g cooked meant once a week, 10g cooked meat and veg once a week and 5g fruit

I would leave the worms the same through all of this.

Then leave it like this for 2 weeks and check the weight loss. If it hasn't changed then take out the fattiest worm
Leave it another week or 2 and If it doesn't improve then do the reduction in the meat and veg as I mentioned before this.
Leave it again and see what happens in weight loss and take it from there.


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## Aj.t (Jan 29, 2019)

Just remember though to decrease her diet in intervals; taking away a large portion all at once can also have negative effects. Just as you would when introducing a new kibble, take bit by bit away over the next few days so they have time to adjust to less food!


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## Hollys helper (Nov 6, 2018)

Thank you both for your help, she isn’t massively over weight but I’m keen to get on top of it before she is as it’s been slowly creeping up since Xmas. I pleased I asked for help as everything you say makes sense, I just couldn’t work it through on my own.

Your advice seems easy enough to follow, I write down everything on charts so it will be easier to monitor. I have written a plan to reduce the bugs and veg/fruit over the next week or two so I don’t reduce them to quickly. So I guess all I can do now is wait and see what happens and adjust in a couple of weeks if her weight isn’t reducing.

Thank you again


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## Buddysmom (Apr 20, 2019)

Wow, now I’m thinking I’m feeding my hog too little! 😬 I feed him 10 worms (lately it’s super) and 2 tablespoons mixed kibble. He’s under 3 months old. Should I be feeding more?


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## Ria (Aug 30, 2018)

Yea I didn't let Holly get that bad either I noticed it fast enough that its still easy to sort. She's hitting her target of loosing 10g a week, which I'm also happy with. 
It is really hard to come up with a plan by yourself, a whole lot easier to get help.



Buddysmom said:


> Wow, now I'm thinking I'm feeding my hog too little! &#128556; I feed him 10 worms (lately it's super) and 2 tablespoons mixed kibble. He's under 3 months old. Should I be feeding more?


As Emc pointed out 10 super worms is a bit much, you can 10 mealworms or 2-4 super worms because of the size difference. 2 tablespoons is whats recommend to give. But if he's only eat half like 1 table spoon then reduce it to 1 and half tablespoons, as he's young leaving the extra is okay.

If you want you could weight out his see exactly how much your giving. Thats always a good idea. 2 tablespoons of my mix is 20g which left huge excess because she only ate 14g. Now shes given 14g and only eats 7-9g of it.


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## Aj.t (Jan 29, 2019)

If he’s eating EVERYTHING each night you can totally increase the kibble a bit


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## Buddysmom (Apr 20, 2019)

*He eats everything!!*

Last night I fed him 10 super worms (the majority were small to med size) and 2 tablespoons of kibble and he cleaned out his bowl! So What shall I do now?! First I got that 10 super worms was too much, now it's ok? I gonna go bat **** crazy here! I don't want him to get fat nor do I want him to be malnourished either. :?


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## Aj.t (Jan 29, 2019)

Haha sorry, didn’t mean to confuse you. The worms might have been a bit much fat wise, but add some kibble for him. Kibble will fill him up with good nutrients and if he’s eating all of his kibble, you can add it


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## Ria (Aug 30, 2018)

If he's already eating 2 tablespoons of biscuit the I wouldnt give anymore. You'll want to do find different insects and use a mix of more insects.

Biscuit may fill him up yes. But long term its not very good for him.
To be honest Biscuit is very much like processed foods for us, they arent the best, the biscuit contains a lot of nutrients they need, but I honestly dont think feeding more than 2 tablespoons of it is a very good idea !!

Also we cant tell if he's eating it just because its there or not, in which case by increasing it too much and he's still eating everything, there is higher chance of getting a bit overweight. 

I personally hate going by tablespoons too. Because its not very accurate. 2 tablespoons could be 20g or 15g its not easy to tell.

If we are being honest here I would get more less fatty insect like crickets, roaches, locusts, silk worms. I'd try to get two low fat insects. Roaches are very good at filling up hedgehogs. I'd bring the insects up to 14-15 insects, but use a mix of low fat and high fat insects.


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## Buddysmom (Apr 20, 2019)

So I can give 5 (med) super worms, and 10 crickets as well as a mix of kibble (2tbsp.) at one feeding on a regular basis? Also is there a weight chart I should be following so he stays at a healthy weight? I can tell he has grown since I’ve had him but he doesn’t feel fat. (I should’ve taken a picture last night as he was roaming around all over me with no fear, looking for worms because he could smell them!)


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## Buddysmom (Apr 20, 2019)

Oh yeah, I’ll weigh the kibble out by grams, so what should it be per feeding? Thanks!


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## Ria (Aug 30, 2018)

5 medium super worms and 10 crickets with the 2 tablespoons of biscuit sounds fine.
Looking from above If he's a perfect tear drop shape like this () then he is fine Also you can tell by them balling up, if he can go into a full tight ball (with no gap at all) then he's perfectly okay. If he cant and theres a gap then he's not okay.

There not really any weight charts to go by, but most like stay between 500-600g some hog can get up 650g and not be over weight. And some dont get over 300g but are't underweight and are the right shape.

Weight of biscuit I wouldn't really go over 15g if it has then dont worry, just bring it down. Because say it weighs 20g he's then eating 20g of biscuit which isnt a very good. Defiantly would not increase it if does weight out to 20g. So ideally be anywhere between 10-15g of biscuit. 

What food are you actually feeding ?? The worse the food is the more they seem to want to eat to fill up, because its not really filling them up.

You can also try doing 5g of cooked meat twice a week and a bit of cooked veg once or twice a week. Even try giving 5g scrambled eggs (no milk ect) or boiled egg broken up once a week.
This will help especially if you need to reduce the amount of biscuit.
I tend to steam the meat and veg as it makes it healthier for them, but you can boil them, bake them, roast them, as long as you plain cook them you can use whichever method. 
The scrambled eggs I tend to do in a non stick pan, but you can use a small bit of coconut oil or flaxseed oil to cook it in if you wish.


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## Buddysmom (Apr 20, 2019)

Awesome, thanks! The kibble is a mix of hedgehog kibble I was given when I got him and cat kibble. I don’t have pictures of them now but I’ve posted them before and others told me it wasn’t bad nor was it the best. So I’ll just finish what I have and mix 2 cat kibbles. 
He rolls up fine with no gap. I’ll have to weigh him soon and keep you posted!


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## Ria (Aug 30, 2018)

Be carful with swapping food, although you do need to change it you'll want to do that slowly, over a month period. I'd start taking Buddy off the hedgehog food when you get nearer the end and move him over to just the cat biscuit, then add in a better cat biscuit a week or so later.
Never do a full change of food in one hit you can end up with a hedgehog that got on hunger strike and then loosing too much weight which wont be good
So lets say your doing 50/50 then just change it to 25 hedgehog biscuit and 75 cat biscuit for a week or 2 depending how he reacts and then take out the hedgehog one so your left with just the cat biscuit

Then add in the new one a week or so latter like this 
Week 1 - 25% new 75% current 
Week 2 - 50% new and 50% current

And if you plan to completely swap it out then do this following from what you've already done. 
Week 3 - 75% new 25% old
Week 4 - 100% new


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## Buddysmom (Apr 20, 2019)

Ria said:


> Be carful with swapping food, although you do need to change it you'll want to do that slowly, over a month period. I'd start taking Buddy off the hedgehog food when you get nearer the end and move him over to just the cat biscuit, then add in a better cat biscuit a week or so later.
> Never do a full change of food in one hit you can end up with a hedgehog that got on hunger strike and then loosing too much weight which wont be good
> So lets say your doing 50/50 then just change it to 25 hedgehog biscuit and 75 cat biscuit for a week or 2 depending how he reacts and then take out the hedgehog one so your left with just the cat biscuit
> 
> ...


Yes, that's the plan, thanks!!


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## Ria (Aug 30, 2018)

Thought I'd make sure because of the way you had it worded.
Your doing a good job to be honest. Its not the easiest thing. I think that the diet is probably the hardest part to sort.
Once you find something its easier.


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