# Thoughts and Feedback on Charley's New Diet



## Alastrina (Sep 18, 2009)

The long and the short of things is that I would like to increase the quality of Charley's diet. He is on good foods now, but there are better ones available from the dry food list at the online retailer I buy from, and over the next 6 months I would like to make some positive changes.

Currently he is on a mix of equal parts Royal Canin 34 Kitten, Innova Cat & Kitten, and Wellness Complete Health.

Charley is extremely active at night, and could be described as a runner type hedge in his cage and an explorer outside of it. He's only still when he's worn out from all the fun! And when he came home with me over a year ago he was not on good food, so he was on the skinny side, so both of these factors led me to decide to place him on a rather high fat diet.

Someone posted a thread about Innova's parent company being bought out by P&G, and the types of formula changes they tend to make lower the quality of a food and can result in a sick animal. I'd really like to avoid this happening to Charley, and as such the Innova is going to be the first thing to go. The Wellness in his mix is the intended replacement for it, and I have another small bag of Innova to help complete the transition.

After the Innova is gone, that will leave the Wellness and the Royal Canin. I may keep the RC as a treat since he really seems to love the little bitty kibbles (bigger than Baby Cat but still small) but I want to take it out of the primary mix as it is fairly high in fat being a kitten food.

I'm considering the following foods to add to the mix to replace the Royal Canin and round out his diet:

* Chicken Soup for the Cat Lover's Soul Light
* Natural Balance Green Pea & Duck 

The breakdown is as follows:

CSCLS Light:
* Protein = 32%
* Fiber = 8%
* Fat = 9%

Natural Balance:
* Protein = 30%
* Fiber = 4%
* Fat = 12%

Wellness:
* Protein = 33%
* Fiber = 5%
* Fat = 19%

Treats would then be:

* Plain boiled chicken (Introduced this last night, he gobbled it ALL up!)
* RC Kitten
* Mealies (5 per day max)
* Fruit/Veg Baby food w/ rice cereal for fiber (suggestions/thoughts welcome on types of baby food to feed and types of cereal to use!)

What I'm asking for are your thoughts on the healthfulness of the proposed new diet, and any ideas on how to improve it, etc.

As I said before I'm planning on making these changes over a good span of time to avoid tummy upsets, and in the end all I want to achieve is a great quality diet for my little guy.

I would also appreciate thoughts on how to up his fiber (he's not interested in plain pumpkin) as the Wellness (which he loves) has made things a little squishy >_>

~Katie


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## Lilysmommy (Jan 7, 2009)

Both foods you're planning to change to are great! I have both of them in Lily's mix now. She's not big on the Chicken Soup, she'll hardly eat it. But I know many others on the forum have a lot of success with it. She absolutely loves Natural Balance, and it's just about the only one she's eating right now (Working on figuring out the cause of her ignoring the other two foods). It seems to be hit-and-miss for which hedgies like which foods, but hopefully he'll take to them!

As far as baby food, no suggestions really. It really depends on the individual hedgehog for whether they'll try any, and which ones they like. I haven't found any fruit ones that Lily likes so far, other than applesauce, and no veggies other than green peas.

I also give baby cereal to add fiber, I think I get an organic rice cereal or something. I put it on her food every four days along with a pill of flaxseed oil (the oil first, then the cereal sticks to it). If his poop is soft from the Wellness, you could try just offering a smaller percentage of Wellness in the mix, or maybe sprinkle cereal on his food more often. I've also heard of people offering Grape Nuts cereal for fiber, but Lily wouldn't touch it.


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## Alastrina (Sep 18, 2009)

Methinks hedgies have a thing for peas ^_^ 

Out of curiosity, what brand of flax seed oil capsules do you use? I'd commented in another thread about oils that I disliked using the kind I'd purchased because it smelled a little off...not as in rancid or expired, just...unpleasant. But I'd like to try adding it to his food to help his skin as it's winter, he's dry skinned as a norm, and I counted at least 5 new quills coming in during his bath yesterday.

I placed my order for the new foods last night, so they should be here in about two weeks! I'm going to be grabbing some rice cereal and baby foods to try when we go to the grocery store today, thank you for replying with the things your little one prefers.

~Katie


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## susanaproenca (Aug 14, 2010)

I have Natural Balance Green Pea and Duck and Wellness Healthy Weight in Mustard's mix and she loves both. I also have Harmony Farms Chicken and Brown Rice Recipe, which is her favorite because it has a higher fat content. 

I think your choices are great and he'll definitely benefit from it.


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## Alastrina (Sep 18, 2009)

I picked up some applesauce and green pea baby food tonight at the grocery store, along with some rice baby cereal and a new kind of flax seed capsule (I think it might be the brand of my previous bottle or age that made Charley smell funny when applied topically, I'm going to try putting it on food this time).

I had an idea about how to tie these things together, it's a technique I used to use when I was preparing mixes for my sugar gliders a few years ago, which is essentially to combine everything in a blender and hit puree.

I would put one kind of baby food, a capsule of flax seed oil, and say a 1/2 tsp of rice cereal (maybe 1tsp for a bigger jar of baby food) and blend it all together, keeping it in a small tupperware bowl in the fridge for 1week max and then trowing out any uneaten mix.

For the gliders I used to freeze the mix in an ice cube tray and thaw it out as needed... curious if this would work also for the hedgie mix without messing with the nutritional value of any of the contents? I know things are better fresh versus frozen, and the frugal part of me balks at throwing away anything I could potentially save for later ^_^

This mix would be a nightly or every-other-nightly supplement to Charley's dry cat food mix, mainly to get him to ingest the flax seed oil and rice cereal for fiber and (hopefully) not have to put wither on the cat food.

If he won't take the mix, I am considering adding the flax and cereal to a small portion of the mix in a separate dish so that even if he refuses it his main meal for the night will be unaffected and he'll still dig in and have a full belly.

~Katie


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## Lilysmommy (Jan 7, 2009)

Sounds like a good way to give it to him, so long as he'll eat the baby food.  And yes, I would definitely recommend freezing the mix. I know baby food only lasts a couple days in the fridge after being opened. I freeze Lily's baby food into cubes and keep them in baggies in the freezer.


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## fracturedcircle (May 31, 2010)

opinions on what the best hedgie diet is really vary, but, as far as i'm concerned, your choices are great.


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## Alastrina (Sep 18, 2009)

Don't I know it ^_^ I've come across a wide variety of information and opinions in doing the research to arrive at my choices. Mainly looking to see what others are feeding who have had more experience with hedgehog diets so I can make an informed decision.

~Katie


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## Alastrina (Sep 18, 2009)

Just reporting on the success of my diet changes for Charley, we're on the right track!

The last bag of Innova has been opened, so it'll be phased out within 4-6 weeks I'm guessing. Wellness and CSFCLS Light is actually a bigger hit than I thought it would be, I think he likes the flavor as well as the shape of the pieces (easier to eat?) and this is great news as I was nervous he wouldn't want to eat it due to the lower fat content. Maybe he knows he ought to trim up a bit ^_^ I've given a few pieces of NB Green Pea & Duck by hand and he's eaten them after a little coaxing, so I think we'll have good luck in this quarter as well when it gets introduced full time into the mix.

Giving flax seed oil internally has been abandoned for now as it resulted in some of the loosest stools I've ever seen from Charley, and he usually likes to be fairly neat about his belly so the mess was driving us both a little batty. I've switched to using a capsule in the mornings for his daily foot bath, and a rinse over his back once a week to help with his skin. So far he's loving this solution as it's keeping his feet clean and his skin soft all around.

Treats have been successfully introduced as well, with his favorite hands down being plain boiled chicken. I've been sprinkling some rice baby cereal over the top of his chicken and baby food offerings, but am considering finding another sort of powder baby cereal with more fiber, as the nutrition facts panel of the box I bought says the rice cereal has no fiber... It does have other important vitamins and minerals, so it's not a total waste, but I'm leaning toward trying something else for fiber all the same.

I've tried apple sauce, green peas, and sweet potato baby foods so far, and the sweet potato is by far the favorite. I'm thinking of trying to blend a larger quantity with some boiled chicken and freezing it in an ice cube tray, and thawing one cube as needed. My theory is he loves the chicken, and kinda likes the baby food, so it would be a good way to broaden his diet without offending his little taste buds too much ^_^

~Katie


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## PJM (May 7, 2010)

Wow, sounds like you've made a lot of progress! I'm glad you posted your findings, because I think they could be helpful to others as well.


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