# what foods can fatten up



## summer

hi i have a new mum and 2 babies and mum is a little thin at the moment she doesnt eat mealworms dried but i have been feeing her chicken breast and cat biscuits
i need to fatten her up a little, what foods will help
thanks marie x


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## muckquenzie

A high fat cat or kitten food would definitely help. As long as the protein levels are appropriate it should work wonders. I currently have my non stop runner of a hedgie on a mix including chicken soup for the cat lover's soul because of it's higher fat content. It has helped, but I'm also considering introducing a kitten food into the mix. Since your hedgie is a momma, I would definitely reccommend a kitten food.


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## Lilysmommy

Be careful with freeze dried mealworms - they can cause impactions.

I agree, a higher fat food will help, and kitten foods are often higher in fat. I know one that is popular with many breeders is Royal Canin Babycat, since it has very small kibble that the babies can easily eat as well.


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## moxieberry

For helping weight gain in general, Royal Canin Kitten 36 is also a good choice to add to a mix. It's the "older kitten" version, similar to the babycat but less fat - 20% I believe, whereas babycat is 24%. The problem with adding a kitten food to the diet of an adult hedgehog is that it tastes better because of the higher fat, and there's a chance that they'll snub the non-kitten food and only eat that. But, for nursing mothers it's kind of a different situation; kitten food it often used for them, though I'm not sure whether mothers usually get only the kitten food while nursing, or kitten food combined with something else. It probably depends on the individual breeder. RC Babycat is probably the most popular one for this purpose, and since it's small and softer than adult kibble, babies will start to eat it as well.

If you're looking for something for the mother while she's nursing, that's definitely a good choice - but if you're going to be trying to put more weight on her after she weans the babies you probably shouldn't continue feeding her the kitten food at that point. It can be very hard to wean an adult off of kitten food. But, it seems most likely that the mother is looking a little thin right now because she's not getting enough fat content from her current food to meet the demands of nursing - assuming that's the case, after the babies are weaned and the mother is back to eating her normal food without having to produce milk, she should return to her regular weight/size fairly quickly.


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## hanhan27

Keep in mind that starting off using a sensible ratio of kitten to adult cat food helps a lot for if you ever need to wean hedgie off the kitten food - I use RC babycat because my hog is very active and loses weight without that extra fat, but she has 3 other types of cat food in her mix that are lower in fat. She gets 20% kitten kibble and 80% adult kibble.


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## moxieberry

hanhan27 said:


> Keep in mind that starting off using a sensible ratio of kitten to adult cat food helps a lot for if you ever need to wean hedgie off the kitten food - I use RC babycat because my hog is very active and loses weight without that extra fat, but she has 3 other types of cat food in her mix that are lower in fat. She gets 20% kitten kibble and 80% adult kibble.


Yeah, having the kitten food as part of a mix is better than that being the only one. Even extremely active runner-types that have trouble keeping at a steady weight need a fat percentage that's higher than 15%, but not as high as what kitten foods tend to be. For instance, going with the ratio hanhan uses: say the overall fat content of the rest of the mix is 14%, and then there's babycat which is 24% - it only takes 1/5 of the babycat (with 4/5 adult food) to raise the entire fat content of the diet by 2%. So small amounts of high-fat kitten food can be used in a mix of adult kibble to raise the fat content as needed, while also not causing the problem of the adult food getting snubbed.

We do exactly this with Archimedes. We decided to add Royal Canin Kitten 36 (20% fat) to his Chicken Soup light (9% fat) because his breeder's mix was running out. Our combination of CSlite and the breeder's mix put the whole fat content at 11%, so we wanted to give him some extra fat because 1. he was getting to be kind of wheel-crazy, and 2. since he was doing well with 11% overall, reducing the fat content to 9% (which would happen when the breeder's mix was used up) was unnecessary and could possibly cause problems with him continuing to gain weight well. We introduced the RC kitten 2-3 weeks ago, and the breeder's mix ran out completely about a week ago. Right now he gets 2 tablespoons of CSlite, of which he eats about 1.5 tablespoons, and about 1 teaspoon of the RC kitten, of which he eats all. So basically he's eating 1.5 tablespoons at 9% fat plus 0.33 tablespoons at 20% fat; the ratio is about 4.5:1, and it puts him at just about 11% fat in total.


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## summer

thanks guys,
the babies are already weaned and are 8 weks old and i just wanted to feed mum up a bit more she looks thin to me but it could be the excess skin 
she,s eating fine at the moment and running on her wheel ok 
doesnt some kitten biscuits have milk in them?


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## Magicac3

*My hedgehog is losing weight rapidly, what ca I do to make h*

I have a female African Pygmy hedgehog named glory. The people I bought her from did not have a wheel for her, and she was at a good weight of 425g. I bought a wheel for her a week or so after getting her, and she loves the stupid thing. She was losing a bit of weight, which. Thought normal, since she hadn't had a wheel before. I have tried and failed with giving her actual hedgehog food, but she loves cat food too much. She did not like mealworms before, but I got her to eat them. She loves bananas and peanut butter. Obviously I am going to be a bit afraid of getting her new food for two reasons. 1, what if she doesn't like it, and does not eat it? 2. The cost. I don't want to buy something, and have it be useless. I am keeping track of her weight, and if it goes down past 300g I think I am going to take her to the vet. For now any suggestions would be extremely helpful, in making her gain weight. I know they need fat, but I also want her to have some muscle on her. Anyway, yeah.


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## Magicac3

I have a female African Pygmy hedgehog named glory. The people I bought her from did not have a wheel for her, and she was at a good weight of 425g. I bought a wheel for her a week or so after getting her, and she loves the stupid thing. She was losing a bit of weight, which. Thought normal, since she hadn't had a wheel before. I have tried and failed with giving her actual hedgehog food, but she loves cat food too much. She did not like mealworms before, but I got her to eat them. She loves bananas and peanut butter. Obviously I am going to be a bit afraid of getting her new food for two reasons. 1, what if she doesn't like it, and does not eat it? 2. The cost. I don't want to buy something, and have it be useless. I am keeping track of her weight, and if it goes down past 300g I think I am going to take her to the vet. For now any suggestions would be extremely helpful, in making her gain weight. I know they need fat, but I also want her to have some muscle on her. Anyway, yeah.


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## moxieberry

Magicac3 said:


> I have a female African Pygmy hedgehog named glory. The people I bought her from did not have a wheel for her, and she was at a good weight of 425g. I bought a wheel for her a week or so after getting her, and she loves the stupid thing. She was losing a bit of weight, which. Thought normal, since she hadn't had a wheel before. I have tried and failed with giving her actual hedgehog food, but she loves cat food too much. She did not like mealworms before, but I got her to eat them. She loves bananas and peanut butter. Obviously I am going to be a bit afraid of getting her new food for two reasons. 1, what if she doesn't like it, and does not eat it? 2. The cost. I don't want to buy something, and have it be useless. I am keeping track of her weight, and if it goes down past 300g I think I am going to take her to the vet. For now any suggestions would be extremely helpful, in making her gain weight. I know they need fat, but I also want her to have some muscle on her. Anyway, yeah.


It's a good thing she likes the cat food more, it's what she's supposed to be eating. What kind is it? You'll probably have to switch to something with higher fat content, or at least add another one that's higher in fat. For most hedgehogs under 15% is recommended, but if she's losing weight on the wheel, you'll have to go higher than whatever the current food is. How much weight has she lost, and how often do you weigh her?


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## Magicac3

She weighed 425 grams wheni got her, and now weighs 353 tonight. I think I have had her just over a month now... It's not really a concern on how fast she is losing it, but on how low she is going. Then on how fast she is losing it, because I don't want her to rapidly lose weight. If that makes any sense at all. The cat food is special kitty, adult formula. It has a min of 10% fat. At least that is what it says. I have also been giving her tons of freeze dried meal worms, which she loves. I give them to her when she goes to sleep, hoping that the inactivity will make it go into fat storage. I have been weighing her everyday since the 26 I believe. I have been keeping track by writing down how much she weighs, if I gave her food or not, and the rough time of weighing. All of which I try to keep constant. Is there any recommended kitty foods that I could give her, that would be a good buy, and that almost all hedgehogs love? That would be extremely helpful!


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## Magicac3

moxieberry said:


> Magicac3 said:
> 
> 
> 
> I have a female African Pygmy hedgehog named glory. The people I bought her from did not have a wheel for her, and she was at a good weight of 425g. I bought a wheel for her a week or so after getting her, and she loves the stupid thing. She was losing a bit of weight, which. Thought normal, since she hadn't had a wheel before. I have tried and failed with giving her actual hedgehog food, but she loves cat food too much. She did not like mealworms before, but I got her to eat them. She loves bananas and peanut butter. Obviously I am going to be a bit afraid of getting her new food for two reasons. 1, what if she doesn't like it, and does not eat it? 2. The cost. I don't want to buy something, and have it be useless. I am keeping track of her weight, and if it goes down past 300g I think I am going to take her to the vet. For now any suggestions would be extremely helpful, in making her gain weight. I know they need fat, but I also want her to have some muscle on her. Anyway, yeah.
> 
> 
> 
> It's a good thing she likes the cat food more, it's what she's supposed to be eating. What kind is it? You'll probably have to switch to something with higher fat content, or at least add another one that's higher in fat. For most hedgehogs under 15% is recommended, but if she's losing weight on the wheel, you'll have to go higher than whatever the current food is. How much weight has she lost, and how often do you weigh her?
Click to expand...

She weighed 425 grams wheni got her, and now weighs 353 tonight. I think I have had her just over a month now... It's not really a concern on how fast she is losing it, but on how low she is going. Then on how fast she is losing it, because I don't want her to rapidly lose weight. If that makes any sense at all. The cat food is special kitty, adult formula. It has a min of 10% fat. At least that is what it says. I have also been giving her tons of freeze dried meal worms, which she loves. I give them to her when she goes to sleep, hoping that the inactivity will make it go into fat storage. I have been weighing her everyday since the 26 I believe. I have been keeping track by writing down how much she weighs, if I gave her food or not, and the rough time of weighing. All of which I try to keep constant. Is there any recommended kitty foods that I could give her, that would be a good buy, and that almost all hedgehogs love? That would be extremely helpful!


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## moxieberry

I'd suggest live mealworms, as freeze-dried ones can cause constipation. You should also definitely look for something that's better quality, with more like 15% or up to 20% fat if she's losing that much weight from the wheel. There's a sticky with a long list of cat foods to compare, so look for a good one in that range. Chicken soup adult formula is about 20%, so that's one to try - a lot of hedgehogs like chicken soul, and it's one of the better choices overall. I would also suggest a vet visit just to rule out any other problems that might be causing the weight loss. Are you free feeding her? If not, how much kibble do you feed her each day?


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