# Adding a dog food? What do you feed?



## grins&needles (Sep 10, 2013)

After reading the hedgehog book written by Kimberly G. or lizardgirl as she is sometimes called, I am under the impression that 1 of my 3 foods would benefit from being a dog food. Any recommendations? What do you feed? What cat foods do you feed? I'm looking at Wellness, Blue Buff, Solid Gold...I just don't know what would be best. I'm willing to spend the cash, but I don't know WHAT to spend it on :lol:!!!


----------



## ZeeMartin (Aug 5, 2013)

giving you a bump so I can read the answer...


----------



## Lilysmommy (Jan 7, 2009)

Generally, I'd look for the same kinds of brands normally suggested for cat food. Solid Gold, Wellness, Natural Balance, etc. A lot of the brands have food for both. I did use a puppy for Lily once, when I was trying to keep weight on her. I used a Wellness brand one, small breed puppy. She wasn't terribly enthusiastic about it, but if I remember right, she wasn't terribly enthusiastic about any food at that point anyway. Look for the same kinds of guidelines as there are for cat food - ingredients, fat content, etc. The protein is almost definitely going to be less, since dogs (omnivores) don't need it as high as cats (obligate carnivores). So that's just fine, I wouldn't worry much about the protein content. Especially in a mix, it should balance out pretty well. 

The main thing to remember with dog food is, unless you get a small breed puppy kibble like I did (which was about the same size as small cat food kibble), you're going to need to crush it. Even some of the small breed kibbles may still need to be crushed. As long as you're okay with that, you can try whatever you want, as long as the ingredients & fat are good to go.


----------



## grins&needles (Sep 10, 2013)

Thanks  you always give such thorough answers!

Sent from Petguide.com Free App


----------



## ajweekley (Aug 8, 2013)

Yep, I include a dog food in my mix. It's Hill's Natural Balance small breed... something. Grain-free. Uh... dang, you're gonna make me go in the kitchen and read the label. :lol:


----------



## ajweekley (Aug 8, 2013)

Natural chicken and brown rice adult small breed. It's not grain-free, but it's free of corn and soy. Gertie seems to really like it.


----------



## grins&needles (Sep 10, 2013)

I'm a regular slave driver Ajweekley!


----------



## ajweekley (Aug 8, 2013)

When I was coming up with my mix, I literally just went to the store and read labels. I looked at the ingredients, and if I was satisfied that the ingredients were good, I wrote down their numbers for fat, protein, fiber, and moisture. Made a little chart. I also only looked at small breed dog foods because of the kibble size, but all the cat foods were fair game. Then I came home and started crunching numbers. I didn't want to deal with different ratios of stuff, so every possible mix I came up with had three foods in equal parts. And then I found a few that had numbers that I could live with, and went to the store for my first choice, armed with my second and third choices just in case.


----------



## grins&needles (Sep 10, 2013)

Dizzying!

Sent from Petguide.com Free App


----------



## ajweekley (Aug 8, 2013)

It was actually the simplest way I could figure to do it. I wanted to make sure the protein and fat ratios were right, and I couldn't find any foods that were right by themselves. So I had to do the math.


----------



## Kimaya (Feb 10, 2013)

I use two dog foods in my mix: Solid Gold Sun Dancer and Fromm Game Bird Recipe. The Solid Gold kibble is large (about the size of a dime) and rather hard/dense. To make it easier for Padfoot, I cut that kibble into 6 bite-sized pieces so that he doesn't hurt his teeth trying to chew it. Fromm's kibble is smaller and closer to the size of cat kibble but I still cut it in half. He absolutely loves the Fromm kibble; he picks those out first.

The reason I looked at dog foods was because the stores around us were limited on the variety of cat food they carried but had isles worth of dog foods. If you/your hedgehog doesn't mind the little extra work of cutting/crushing the kibble it gives you more options to add to a mix. I stayed away from the Wellness dog food as I wasn't if it would upset Padfoot's stomach like the cat food did. Better safe than sorry. 

I use Blue Buffalo Basics Cat food as the final piece of my mix. The kibbles are small for this food and has a few different meat sources to choose from. Each of his kibble are a different meat source so that it gives Padfoot a nice variety.

*I will note that Fromm's formulas tended to be higher in fat than most, so unless you have an extreme wheeler or a hedgie that has trouble keeping weight on then you might want to look over this brand.


----------



## grins&needles (Sep 10, 2013)

Settled on 
Natural Balance Green Pea & Duck Cat
Wellness Core Small Breed Dog
Nutro Weightloss Cat


----------



## zamxonk (Mar 6, 2013)

I just picked up some Natural Balance Fat Dog formula today to try out with Ambrose. On a dry matter basis, it's got about 8.5% fat, main ingredients are chicken meal, salmon meal, garbanzo beans, dried peas, and pearled barley. The pieces are large, but flat, so I gave him one kibble whole and cut the other in half, then cut one of those in half again. Hopefully he'll try it, and maybe I'll be able to tell how easily he can eat it from what's gone. 

He's been having digestive issues from the beginning, and nothing seems to make it go away, so the food experiments continue.


----------

