# Vet Recommends Mazuri Insectivore Diet



## Huffle-Buffy (Mar 25, 2021)

I recently took my hedgehog Buffy to the vet for a routine checkup and the vet strongly recommended that I completely take her off of cat food and switch to Mazuri Insectivore
Diet. Her main reason was that high protein cat foods (grain free in particular) have recently been linked to heart disease in hedgies, and she had recently treated a hedgehog for just that. I was just wondering if anyone has heard anything else about this?

My vet has experience with hedgehogs and gave a pretty long list of good reasons for making this switch, and is clearly an expert, I'm just surprised I haven't heard anything about this before and just wanted to put this out there in case anyone else wants to know and has any insights they would like to share, which I would definitely appreciate. She also went into some detail so if anyone has any questions I can elaborate on what she said.


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## Ria (Aug 30, 2018)

Mazuri hedgehog food is full of rubbish plant fillers that they struggle to digest. They also tend to be way to high for our aph's. How is that any better than a mix of high quality cat food that you balace the protein and fat of to make it right?

They arent made to be sole diets, its just to help boots nutrients in wild hogs. Plus it helps fatten them up which our APH do not need.

In the UK hedgehog rescue centres advise us to put out cat or dog food since all hedgehog foods are rubbish.

Never heard of cat food linking to heart problems.

Personally I use a mix of cat and dog, as dogs have lower protein so helped to make the protein a good percentage. I crush it to make it easy for her to eat to.


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## shinydistraction (Jul 6, 2014)

Yeah, seriously. My vet recommended the same thing, and a quick glance at the ingredients list tells you it's garbage food. It seriously had aspen in it if I remember properly. If not aspen, some other kind of wood. Clearly being used as a filler, but what a poor quality filler. Herbivores don't even eat straight wood on purpose and hedgehogs are definitely not herbivores. I honestly think they're equating hedgehogs eat bugs to insectivore food is obviously good despite what's actually in it. At the end of the day, its up to you what advice you decide to use. You have paid for the vets opinion, so you can either go with it, or ignore it. But keep in mind a lot of vets do not study diet (even for animals that they more commonly treat like dogs and cats) and are not necessarily experts in that particular area of study. But if you decide to take your vets advice, you won't get any hate from me. I just personally chose not to take that recommendation.


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## SunnyLeslie (Apr 13, 2021)

In nature, hedgehogs eat insects, which means that at home, insects should be present in the diet. Of course, you can add cat food to the diet, but the basis of the diet should be the same food that the animal eats in natural conditions.


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## Ria (Aug 30, 2018)

SunnyLeslie said:


> In nature, hedgehogs eat insects, which means that at home, insects should be present in the diet. Of course, you can add cat food to the diet, but the basis of the diet should be the same food that the animal eats in natural conditions.


Yes, though this food we are talking about isnt insect based. Actually it doesn't really have much insects! And if I remember right the main insect is mealworms which are not good as staple diet. 
This food is mostly plant based fillers.

So while yes Hedgehogs need a lot of insects, but this food is not that.

Cat biscuits give them the nutrients they need, and you should be feeding insects - live or live then frozen yourself are the best way to give insects.


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## SunnyLeslie (Apr 13, 2021)

Get crickets or ****roaches - the hedgehog will eat them with great pleasure. Although, ****roaches and crickets are not the most pleasant living creatures in the house, but pleasant for a hedgehog.


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## mngirl29 (Apr 22, 2021)

Mazuri has ground aspen in it, literally wood shavings! Stick to grain free high protein cat food or hedgehog food from hedgehogs and friends and get a new vet. My guess is that your vet might be getting a kick back from sales of mazuri


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