# Best Food Mix?



## KaelaByte (Jun 3, 2015)

I have been looking to create a food mix for my hedgie. however I am not sure which brands are best, which meats, percentages etc. I have it narrowed down to about 8 foods for my three-4 food mix. (all percentages are calculated with moisture in mind) I am trying to keep protein a little lower since his treats are high in protein.


Natural Balance Pea and Chicken: fat - 13, protein - 33, fiber 4.5
Blue Buffalo Red Meats: fat - 48, protein - 40, fiber 5.5
Solid Gold Alaskan Polluck: fat - 8, protein - 33, fiber 11
Chicken Soup... Weight mature.: fat - 10, protein - 38, fiber 9
Chicken Soup.... Adult: fat - 14.5, protein - 35.5, fiber 9
Blue Basics grain free Duck and Potato: fat - 33, protein - 33, fiber 7
Blue Basics Turkey and Potato: fat - 15.5, protein - 31, fiber 8
Blue Basics grain free Turkey and Potato: fat - 13, protein - 33, fiber 7
I am thinking one of these mixes:


1+2+3
1+2+4
1+2+5
1+6+5
1+7+4
1+8+5
Which do you feel might be best? or perhaps a four food mix? (Sorry if this is a bit much, I'm a bit of an over thinker :lol


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## twobytwopets (Feb 2, 2014)

Is that a typo or does the blue buffalo really contain 48% fat? If it is your hedgehog may resemble the stay-puff marshmallow man if he eats it. 

Ok, here is where you get to make some further choices. But I'll explain my personal choices in how I came across a mix. 
You crunched numbers, found out what's available locally. 
One thing that is important to me is I want different protein sources and different brands of food. Sometimes a recall will affect more than one food from the same company. Also look through the ingredient list, some foods are more deceiving than others and depending on your standards one mix may be preferable over another. 
Also if your hedgehog doesn't eat a food, it isn't food.


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## KaelaByte (Jun 3, 2015)

Hmm I really don't know much about appraising ingredients other than no garlic etc. Yea that was a typo btw, my bad.

I think I narrowed it down to these combos:

Chicken soup weight management
Blue basic grain free turkey
Solid gold pollack 

And either 
Solid gold rabbit. Or
Natural balance chicken and peas

Both hit about 12% fat, 34% proteins. Do yall see a clear winner here? Or any reason not to use one of these five? 

Also are four food mixes ok?


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## KaelaByte (Jun 3, 2015)

Also, would a dog food work if it is crushed up well? I have found three brands that would help with protein from what seems to be good brands with good ingredients.

Blue Basics limited ingredient turkey and potato
Blue basics limited ingredient grain free duck and potato
Simply nourish limited ingredient natural, sweet potato and salmon


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## twobytwopets (Feb 2, 2014)

That goes to a personal preference/ finding a balance. 
I prefer 3 or more in mixes. I worry that 2 foods will be recalled or unavailable simultaneously. 
The balance comes into play with how long it will take you to go through a bag of food/ can you store it in a way that will make it last longer. Are you wiling to dispose of a bag that's still got food if it isn't fresh? The more types of food you have in your mix, the longer it will take to go through one bag.

As for the dog food, it's mentioned in the stickies. http://www.hedgehogcentral.com/foru...3034-beginner-s-guide-hedgehog-nutrition.html


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## KaelaByte (Jun 3, 2015)

I had seen that but I also thought there had been some debate wasn't sure if public opinion had changed since that was written


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## twobytwopets (Feb 2, 2014)

Actually that's a work in progress. Lillysmommy updated it I believe a week or two ago. Basically crappy food is crappy no matter what animal it's manufactured for. The opposite is true, good food is still good food. The main issue with most dog foods is it's in bigger hunks. Take a hammer, rolling pin or cast iron skillet and work out some frustrations and you could have hedgehog sized food.


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## Lilysmommy (Jan 7, 2009)

Beginner's Guide is up to date!  As well as the newer Advanced Guide. The main sticky that's still out-of-date that I need to work on is the Recommended Foods list. So yeah, dog food is perfectly fine.

As far as your mix, four foods is perfectly fine, you can really do as many as you want. I know someone who had something like 5-6 foods in her hedgehog's main mix, plus she added 2-3 more foods each night, counted separately. Like Twobytwo said, the main thing is that it's going to take longer to go through it & you'll likely end up with stale food that you throw away before it's all gone. I had three foods for Lily, all were about 5-6lb bags and I still ended up throwing away the ends of each bag because they'd start going stale. And that was with keeping them in gallon freezer bags in our deep freezer. She was pretty clear about it though - once we started getting close to the end, it'd start getting stale, and she'd start eating less & less each night. 

The foods you've listed all look good to me. Personally I like to get as many different proteins as I can, both for variety & nutrition. As far as the brands you've listed, Solid Gold is my favorite. I'm not a huge fan of Chicken Soup's mature food because they have powdered cellulose in it, which is not an acceptable ingredient in cat or dog food, IMO. Their adult food is fine though. Blue Buffalo is really popular & a lot of hedgehogs seem to like it well. Some people are iffy on the company because there was a big issue earlier this year where it came out that they were lying about the quality of some of their food ingredients. But like I said, a lot of people still use their food & it seems to be well received by hedgehogs, which is a plus when hedgies tend to be so picky.


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