# How important is cat food?



## ~Robin~ (Jul 22, 2011)

I got Hedgie last week Thursday. I bought her from a friend and she is 17 months old. She has been amazing and is already warming up to me  The first two nights I had her, she ate the majority of her cat food (about 1/8 cup). Then I found this forum and read that I should be giving her mealworms and crickets. I tried mealworms first and she gobbled up 6! That night she didn't eat much cat food. Last night I gave her 2 mealworms and 4 crickets and again she didn't hardly touch her cat food. Does this mean I should cut down on the bugs or is it ok if she just eats a few pieces of cat food and gets the majority of her nutrition from mealworms and crickets?


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## MissC (Nov 15, 2010)

The short answer is: no, she doesn't need kibble...however...she needs more than a few insects.

What kind of kibble is it? I need a better pic in my head of how much 1/8th of a cup is.  

I don't feed kibble at all anymore as Sumo stopped eating it entirely once I changed his diet to meat/veggies. But he eats 8-10 crickets, 5 mealies and 2 tbsp of meat plus veggies and fruit...he's a BIG boy but even at half that, your girl isn't eating much.

hhhmmm...if it was me, I would continue offering her insects (the same number you suggested) and count her kibble, so you know for sure how much she's eating (be sure to replace it every day with new stuff, regardless of how much is left), and I would try to introduce ONE veggie (cooked carrots or sweet potato, maybe or spinach - I am thinking most nutritious and most widely liked).

I'm sure you know this: introduce only one new food - a little at a time - until she gets used to it.


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## CanadienHedgie (Feb 4, 2011)

Mealworms are high in fat, so don't feed to many. My hedgies eat between 5-15 kibbles a night, by there choice. But they do need more in their diet then just mealworms and crickets. Mealworms are high in fat, so don't feed to many. Their daily food consists of:

-A mixture of 4 Blue Buffalo foods (1 chicken flavored, 1 turkey flavored, 1 duck flavored, 1 extra).
-2 or 3 live crickets (I either rip the legs off and put them in the cage or leave the legs on and put them in the tub).
-10 crickets that are thawed and hidden in the cage for them to "hunt".
-About 4 live mealworms, as a treat when they unball.
-3 grasshoppers that are thawed and hidden in the cage for them to "hunt".
-1 Shell-less snail (they SMELL).
-2 frozen then thawed pinkies a week.

Then I make my own foods, that they get as well. I currently have 7 different types, so they get a different one every 7 days. I use mostly the same vegetables in each, just different meats/weight of ingredients. I chop them up into bite size pieces in a grinder or with a knife. I use to have 8 different types, but decided to remove the all veggie/fruit one.

Day 1: Chicken, turkey and brown rice
Day 2: Veggies, rabbit and pumpkin
Day 3: Turkey, carrots/asparagus and potato
Day 4: Chicken, brown rice and squash
Day 5: Bison, brown rice and turkey
Day 6: Duck, turkey and brown rice
Day 7: Venison, potato and brown rice

I cook them all in pots, then freeze them in pill organizers. You know the ones that say the days of the week? [attachment=0:1eztu4e7]medium-seven-day-pill-organizer-856.jpg[/attachment:1eztu4e7] They come in different sizes, I bought "Large". I just put the different foods into each of these and put them in the freezer. Then I just pop it out of the pill holder, put it in the microwave for 10 seconds, and put them in the cage. Before I did this though, I just frozen them in icecube trays, once frozen, I put them in ziplock bags labeled with the day of the week they'd be fed. This also works great.


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## MissC (Nov 15, 2010)

...forgot...have you been weighing her?


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## ~Robin~ (Jul 22, 2011)

Thank you, you have both been super helpful!

I have not weighed her. Do I use a postal scale?

I started feeding Hedgie the crickets because I read on here the mealworms are high in fat. Tonight I gave her 7 crickets and she gobbled them up! She eats them thawed, are the nutrients the same? She didn't like them live. 

I guess 1/8 cup is about 3 Tbsp, give or take. She didn't eat all of it though, probably about 2 Tbsp. I'm not sure what kind of cat food it is, my friend gave me 2 gallon size ziploc bags of it. If I had to wager a guess I would say it is this, based on the store she bought it from.: http://shop.costco.com/en/In-The-Wareho ... d/Cat.aspx Since corn isn't the main ingredient it should be okay?

I will start adding some veggies to her diet. Do I mix that in with the cat food or keep it separate? I suppose it varies according to each hog's taste. I will count out her kibble tonight and see what she has tomorrow. I also wasn't putting fresh kibble in since she still had some left, so maybe that's turning her off it. She likes kicking her bowl around at night though, so may be hard to determine exactly what she's eating. :roll:


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## CanadienHedgie (Feb 4, 2011)

That foods good, except... The fat is too high. Once they are over 6 months, the fat needs to be 9-14%, unless you have a hedgehog that looses weight from running so much. Are you using plastic dishes or ceramic? You can put the veggies in a separate dish or in the same dish, it really doesn't matter. If they don't like the veggies, they will eat around them anyways to get the ones they like/kibble they like :roll: :lol: .


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## ~Robin~ (Jul 22, 2011)

Ok, I will buy her a new food tomorrow and give the rest of what she has to my cats. 

She has plastic dishes. Are ceramic better?


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## Lilysmommy (Jan 7, 2009)

I know a lot of people use ceramic rather than plastic because they're heavier and therefore harder to tip over. Not sure if there's other reasons though...

Also, don't get rid of her old food just yet! You'll want to do a slow switch from old food to new food, to avoid upsetting her stomach. The general formula is 
Week 1: 1/4 new, 3/4 old
Week 2: 1/2 new, 1/2 old
Week 3: 3/4 new, 1/4 old
Week 4: all new!


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## CanadienHedgie (Feb 4, 2011)

Ceramic bowls are better because they cannot be tipped over. Plastic bowls are easily tipped, so water can be dumped and they could get dehydrated. Plus, it makes a mess when food is tipped over. I use glass bowls I got in a baking set. But the dollar store can be your best friend!  

Remember for food to switch it:
Week 1: 1/4 new, 3/4 old
Week 2: 1/2 new, 1/2 old
Week 3: 3/4 new, 1/4 old
Week 4: Eating all new food

What you want in a cat food (If you didn't know):
Protein: 29-33%
Fat (over 6 months): 9-14%
Fiber: 3% or more
First ingredient: Real meat (chicken, duck, lamb, turkey, etc)
Second ingredient: Real meat or meat meal (chicken meal, duck meal, lamb meal, etc.)
No: corn, wheat, animal by-products, animal digest, raisins or nuts
Beef and pork are hard to digest.


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## susanaproenca (Aug 14, 2010)

Hi and welcome! 

I just wanted to point out that depending on your hedgie's activity level 9-14% fat might be too low. One of my girls runs about 5 miles / night and when I was feeding her kibble as her main diet I had to offer a kibble that was 18% fat or else she wouldn't keep weight steady. So before going too low on fat I recommend you start monitoring her weight weekly or twice a week, and also learn more about her activity level.


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## ~Robin~ (Jul 22, 2011)

Last night I counted out 50 kibbles. They are pretty small, like 1/4 inch balls. I recounted this morning and it looks like Hedgie only ate 9 of them. So her total food for yesterday was 7 crickets and 9 kibbles, not much huh? I'm going to try giving her some sweet potato tonight.

Right now, she's not very active. I get her out every evening to move around, but she usually chooses to crawl into her snuggle sack and sit on my lap. I don't have a wheel for her right now but a flying saucer is on its way, should be here by the end of this week. I'll buy a lower fat cat food for now and start monitoring her weight. If it ends up being too low fat, I can feed it to my cats! :lol: 

So tonight, I'm thinking of putting 20 kibbles in her bowl. Mixing 15 of her regular food and 5 of the new food. Hopefully she'll eat some old and some new. What will happen to her though if she eats all 5 of the new food but only 4 of the old food? Would that cause a tummy ache? Should I only put 10 kibble in tonight with 6 regular and 3 new?


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## MissC (Nov 15, 2010)

I can't help with the kibble...sorry...I will let some kibble pros comment.

I would suggest you weigh her every day so you get a good idea if she's losing/gaining, etc. A weight change is often the first symptom of illness in hedgies. Try to weigh at the same time every day. You can use any scale that reads in ounce/gram increments but I found the digital ones work much better and are more sensitive. I got mine for under $20 on ebay, I think? Or Sears?


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## ~Robin~ (Jul 22, 2011)

Hedgie's exercise wheel came yesterday and she loves it! I heard her on it for at least 1 hour but she probably was on it more while I was sleeping! So, that's the good news.

She's still not eating much kibble. The last two nights I offered her sweet potatoes and she won't touch it. She ate 7 crickets both Tues and Weds night. Tuesday night she ate 11 kibbles, so I was pretty pleased with that. Last night though, she only ate 2. And that's if they didn't get knocked out of her dish, which was pushed to the center of her cage.

I have enough sweet potato left to offer her tonight and then I'll try a different veggie. But does anyone know how to encourage her to eat more? I haven't weighed her yet, I have to wait until this weekend when I have more money to buy her a scale.


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