# Homemade diet



## wushu1987 (Dec 26, 2015)

Hello,

I am thinking of switching my girl to a homemade diet instead of cat food. Can anyone help me with this? Like how and what yoi cook? Can I make up food and freeze and if so how long would it be good for? Do I need to supplement with vitamins to make sure she gets everything she needs? I thought there was a sticky on here about it but I don't see it. Thanks in advance!


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## Artemis-Ichiro (Jan 22, 2016)

It's not a sticky, it's a thread from Lilysmommy and a homemade diet it's not something easy and needs a lot of research. 

Good luck


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## FinnickHog (Dec 1, 2014)

I can walk you through it if you'd like! I'm at work right now but I'm off tonight until Saturday. In the meantime, here are some threads to get you started:

http://www.hedgehogcentral.com/forums/12-diet-nutrition/23066-raw-home-cooked-diets.html

http://www.hedgehogcentral.com/forums/12-diet-nutrition/114530-advanced-nutrition-guide.html

http://www.hedgehogcentral.com/forums/12-diet-nutrition/144217-raw-diet-spreadsheets-calculator.html note the links to spreadsheets on this one

http://www.hedgehogcentral.com/forums/12-diet-nutrition/129409-skink-hedgehog-chow.html this chronicles how aI developed the diet I use.

http://www.hedgehogcentral.com/forums/12-diet-nutrition/128865-bindi-s-raw-diet.html and that's Kelsey's.

Hopefully that's formatted alright since I'm on my phone. Break time is over but I'll check in later. Have fun reading!


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## wushu1987 (Dec 26, 2015)

Hi Finnick thanks so much for your reply! I work tonight and hopefully I can read over everything while I am here  it's all very intimidating and I want to know as much as possible before I attempt it. How has your hedgie been doing on it? Did you slowly introduce all the new foods? Do you still feed some cat food? Sorry so many questions. I will work on reading all my "homework" tonight  thanks again!


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## FinnickHog (Dec 1, 2014)

I had this lovely response all typed out, and then my computer crashed . So here we go again!

Hopefully it gets a bit less intimidating once you power through all that reading. The research part should be all covered in the spreadsheets, which makes it a bunch simpler.

Finn and I tested each fruit and veggie first, one new food at a time, just a small amount, for three days in a row, and then switched to the next one. I checked for really awful poops, excessive scratching, any redness, basically anything gastrointestinal or allergenic-looking. Everything was clear though. With foods he didn't love, I mixed them into some cat food pate so he would eat them.

The insects he was already eating prior, so I didn't test those, I just added them straight in. I didn't test the meats either, since all I can consistently get out here is chicken. So he gets scrambled eggs and chicken breast. The breast I just slice up and stick in a pan on the stove until it's cooked. Salmonella grosses me right out. 

With the insects, the chicken, and the fruits and veg, there were still a few things missing, so I do still feed a small amount of canned cat food. He's getting a rabbit pate and a flaked salmon one right now, just to add some extra variety to the proteins and supply some extra minerals I couldn't get quite right.

I mix everything according to a ratio I worked out, but it ends up being 30% meat (cat food, chicken, egg) 30% insect (canned, fresh, whatever I have around), 30% vegetables, and 10% fruit. That seems to work pretty well. I have ice cube trays in the freezer in ziploc bags, and I just slop my mix into the cubes, seal the bag and freeze it, and then I pop a week's worth out at a time into the fridge. For Finn the portioning of one cube a day is just right, so I lucked out there.

Just an addendum to my research, in all the mammals I can find studied (of course hedgehogs aren't among those so it's a broad generalization on my part) the calcium in leafy greens is actually not absorbed properly due to another compound in the veggies, oxalate, binding to the calcium once we consume it and rendering it useless. To fix this, if you boil any veggies that are high in calcium, this will break down the oxalate and make the calcium absorption much higher. Which is excellent because calcium is a pain to balance!

As for how he's doing, he's super shiny, his skin is great (I blame the oily rabbit, but who knows?) his eyes are bright, his poops are firm but not hard, he's crazy active and he still won't put on any weight! I've had to drastically increase his fat content from where we started, but he just won't put weight on. He's not underweight, but he is a bit on the thin side. I can only assume it's because he burns every calorie he eats by running around like a madman all night. But that is my only concern right now with this diet. I know Bindi is still doing well on her fresh diet too, and she's not getting any skinnier. And last I heard, Pancake was starting to try a few new things too, so it's all good on Kelsey's end!


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## wushu1987 (Dec 26, 2015)

I'm glad to hear everyone is liking their new diet!! Thank you so much for all of the info, you are amazing. I still have to read through I bunch (it's been busy at work lol) but I'm planning on printing stuff out and trying to get it all organized. I have some time to figure things out before I start this adventure. My hedgie is finishing up some antibiotics so I really don't want to change anything until she's done with that and feeling better. Do you do anything for probiotics? That cat food I have her on has some in it now. I was thinking maybe a small amount of yogurt while she is on the antibiotics since they just trash the good bacteria. I read that even though they are lactose intolerant small amounts of yogurt can be ok because the enzymes break down the lactulose but I'm not sure. Her poop has been a little green since starting the antibiotics. I'm hoping she gets all better soon so I can start giving her some nice healthy food. Thank you so much for all the information. I'm sure I will have more questions once I read everything lol. How did you know how much to feed him? My hedgie is slight overweight (not enough that the vet was concerned) so I will have to make sure I figure out everything right for her. Luckily she seems like she's not a very picky eater ... guess we will see?


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## FinnickHog (Dec 1, 2014)

I would definitely wait a month after the antibiotics are done to do any tinkering with her diet, since they're so rough on the tummy. My boy's never had to be medicated (so far, fingers crossed) so I'm not too concerned about it. You could probably do a bit of yogurt but it could just make things worse.

If you can get your hands on Florentero Paste that's your safest bet, since it's designed for smaller mammals. You could also crack open a probiotic pill meant for people and sprinkle the teeniest bit onto her food. If her poop has only been a little off I personally wouldn't bother, just because none of this stuff has really been tested on hedgehogs and we just don't know if it's truly of any benefit.

I just started with the same amount of food I always gave him (2 tbsp of dry kibble straight to 2 tbsp of wet mix) and then increased it slightly until he was eating almost all of it. He leaves about 6 grams on the plate every morning. With him I'd rather overfeed than underfeed since he doesn't have a weight problem. Once we get more into it, we can work out a slightly lower fat content than your girl is getting now and try a similar portion that way to see if she will very gradually drop some weight for you.

Any new questions yet?


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