# Good "gumming" food suggestions please



## Kizzynicole (Mar 5, 2013)

Hi there!

My hedgehog has no teeth and I feed him his food moistened with water, which he loves. I was hoping, though, to find a food that won't re-harden during the night like his food does and won't spoil as easily.

I read here: http://www.hedgehogcentral.com/dental.shtml about the Select Diet, which is good for gumming and won't spoil and harden. Is this food the same thing? Amazon.com: 8 in 1 Ultra-Blend Select Hedgehog Diet, 22-Ounce: Pet Supplies Or, is this something hard? I know it's not the greatest food, but if it's good for gumming I would like to have it in his cage too.

Is there anything else I can give? He still has a hard time with his moist food if they're not moistened completely. He gums them down a bit but will sometimes give up and spit them out. He's kind of funny because he will sometimes place them in the water bowl for awhile and come back to them later :lol:

Any suggestions will be appreciated!! Thanks


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## Annie&Tibbers (Apr 16, 2013)

Maybe babyfoods?


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## Chloethehedgie7 (Jul 24, 2013)

Okay, I think I know what to do.  Whatever food he is on now, usually Company's have their dry food in wet food form. So, whatever food he is on now, I would suggest getting that in wet food form.  Try that if you want. If the Company doesn't have it in wet food, try using a different healthy brand that has it.  I use Authority cat food. I am 99% sure that they have it in wet form. VERY very healthy food!  Your hedgie will like it and your wallet too.


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## abbys (Oct 13, 2012)

I'm not sure it would be safe to leave wet food out all night, otherwise I would suggest that. Unfortunately I don't have any ideas other than to possibly supplement his diet with wet food and baby food like Annie and Chloe suggested during the daytime.


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## Kizzynicole (Mar 5, 2013)

I would imagine wet food and baby food spoils over night. He's not a scheduled eater and never comes out during the day to eat normally. I sometimes give him wet foods during cuddle time and he does ok with it. It would just be nice to find something that I can leave in from 10pm to 9am without getting crusty and nasty =/


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## grins&needles (Sep 10, 2013)

Out of curiosity how did you hedgie lose its teeth?


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## Lilysmommy (Jan 7, 2009)

To be honest, I'm not sure there IS something that would last that long without getting dried up or crusty, especially with the heat of a hedgehog's cage. The closest I can think of would be a liquid diet, maybe...depending on whether he'd take well to that or not. Do you go to bed at 10 pm, or is that just when you put him away for the night & his lights go off? If you go to bed later, you could do a food change right before you go to bed to help keep his food fresher for longer into the night.

Here's a sticky that has a lot of recommendations for soft food diets, maybe it'll give you some more ideas - http://www.hedgehogcentral.com/forums/12-diet-nutrition/19-soft-food-recommendations.html It also has some guidelines for making sure you get canned food with the right nutritional analysis.

As far as spoiling...I don't think wet food or baby food would necessarily get harmful by morning - it just would look gross & probably not be as palatable to hedgie. I gave Lily a mix of baby foods every night as a supplement to her cat food mix. If there was any left in the morning, it was dried up, but if she did try eating it later in the night (before it went totally dry), I never saw any negative effects from it (vomiting, illness, etc.). There's a couple of members that are currently feeding raw diets to their hedgehogs and they haven't reported any negative effects even from raw meat being left in the cage overnight.

Another thing you can do (which is mentioned briefly in the Soft Diets sticky) is put in two cubes/blobs/whatever of whatever food you want to feed (wet cat food, baby food, a soft mix, etc.). One can be thawed & ready to eat whenever. One could be frozen, which would slowly thaw out over a couple hours in the cage. Then that serving would be available to eat later in the night, after the first has dried or gone crusty.


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## Kalandra (Aug 25, 2008)

You aren't likely to find a food that will stay moist over night. Some kibble does soften and doesn't get as hard when it dries out though. The foods I feed mine tend to still break easily between my thumb and finger. 

I provide moistened kibble at bedtime, and then will freshen her food in the am. For the am portion, I put the food in the hedgehog's bag with her because she won't get up to eat during the day. This has worked very well with my gal. Although sometimes she gets hungry at 4am and doesn't want to wait until I get up and finds ways to wake me to cater to her needs. She also occasionally gets baby food or canned cat food. I will pull any uneaten food out in the AM. Mine also had an issue with bloating due to canned food, so she now only gets that a couple of times a week.


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## GoodandPlenty (Feb 4, 2012)

Due to a serious case of cystitis, which caused a considerable amount blood in her urine, coupled with a tendency toward dehydration (simply not drinking enough), I have over the last few months moved Sophie to a 100% wet diet. I can give you some notes about what we have done and perhaps parts of our routine will be helpful for you.

1. I am not concerned about leaving wet foods overnight. Her foods are refrigerated up until they go into the cage. Two dishes (very small condiment dishes) are put in her cages shortly before lights out. I check in on her late-night and spruce up anything not eaten, but leave it in place. Then, depending on how much she has eaten, she gets one or two more dishes for the rest of the night.

2. Sophie never, ever comes out of the burrow in her tunnel during the day. I do not leave out wet foods. I do leave a small amount of dry, crushed kibble out. This way, if she ever does come out looking for food - I will know. At that time I might start leaving her a mini-dish of her wet food for the day. (The dry food is just to know if she ever comes out for food. If she ever does, the dry food will be removed because it isn't good for her.)

3. She won't eat wet foods that have started to dry out. I thin her food mixes with a small amount of water and this has solved that problem completely.

3. I prepare a custom blend of the items below. (After the list, I'll note how I prepare her food super-quickly and efficiently.

4. Canned cat foods (to my great surprise) can have pretty high fat and protein percentages. The percentage on the can may seem low, but when factoring in 'Dry Matter Basis' (which I learned about here), the percentages seem to generally be higher than kibble. Sophie's weight is okay, but it wouldn't be if she just got canned foods. She loves them and will eat way more than she can work off.

Her canned foods are a rotation of several varieties of Natural Balance, Merrick, and Blue. (Mostly chicken, turkey, duck, venison.) (The little three ounce cans.)

5. I rotate Gerber and Beechnut baby foods. (chicken and turkey) (The little two ounce jars.)

6. I rotate three different vegetable blends of Beechnut baby foods (4 ounce jars). Previously, Sophie never accepted vegetables at all. These were added because we simply had to find a way to reduce the energy density of her food. Veggies are healthy, but have very low energy density. That means she can eat all she wants, but won't be gaining weight.

She was highly resistant to having vegetables added to her food and refused to eat at all for a couple of nights. I adjusted the amount in her mix to just 2 grams; got her to accept that her food was still delicious; and then began slowly increasing the amount. Now, her veggie percentage is pretty high and she doesn't mind at all. We're at 10 grams per dish now and monitoring weight. This is still a work in progress, but things are going well. She accepted the pea based baby food pretty easily. I had to go slower with the carrot based food, but she's become pretty good with that now also. (Still never her first choice.)

6. I grind her kibble (Katz-n-Flocken) with a mortar and pestle. Wetting kibble by itself just makes a mess, IMO. It incorporates beautifully into the wet foods.

7. I have a little bitty 35 ml squirt bottle that I use to thin her food mix. I add as much as reasonable, but stay short of the food 'slumping' (getting toward 'soupy').

8. I use this scale to weight her foods. It is accurate to 0.1 grams.

http://www.oldwillknottscales.com/my-weigh-ibalance-300.html
...............................................

9. Her current food mix is:

4 grams of meat baby food or canned food. She actually gets two dishes with the early night feeding, so I'm really doing both - one of each. Her late-night feeding is one or two additional dishes, depending on how much she ate.

10 grams of one of her veggies. Different veggies for each dish because this quantity makes the vegetable the dominant taste.

1 1/2 grams ground kibble. It just takes a moment to grind with a small mortar and pestle.

Thin with water as needed.
...............................................

Baby foods are supposed to be used within about three days, after opening. I will use them for six days. They are only out of the refrigerator for a few minutes a day, so am not concerned.

I have a tray that holds my small condiment dishes for feeding, slightly larger condiment dishes for mixing, small spoons and flat knives for doling out the foods, mortar and pestle for grinding kibble, and the scale for weighing. I spend about ten minutes getting her food ready, including putting everything away.


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## Kizzynicole (Mar 5, 2013)

grins&needles said:


> Out of curiosity how did you hedgie lose its teeth?


I really don't know how he lost them. He could have just been more prone to tooth loss than other hedgies. Kind of a mystery. I don't have to worry about him biting me though! 

Thank you everyone for the suggestions! I've tried a few baby foods and so far I can't get him to taste them, or if he does taste them he won't eat it. I'll keep trying different kinds though. I haven't tried the crushed kibbles with it, I'll have to do that. Maybe if he smells his kibbles in the baby food he will realize he likes that stuff too! I've had some ups and downs with his wet kibbles. He eats them, then he doesn't, then he eats half his normal amount, then the kibbles are all gone.

Does soft foods and thinned foods always = more runny poop?


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## Kalandra (Aug 25, 2008)

Kizzynicole said:


> Does soft foods and thinned foods always = more runny poop?


No. It may result in runny/loose stools until the hedgehog's system adjusts, which can take time, but my toothless kids have always had normal stools afterwards. If you see runny stools, you may want to add a bit of acidolphilus for a while to see if they improve.


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