# Is wet cat food a good option?



## soile6661

hey, my 7 months old hedgehog eats only his dry cat food and i wondered if i could give him some of the wet cat food as well because he likes chicken so it'd be a nice addition, is that okay for hedgehogs? 
something like this: 
http://c1.wag.com/images/products/p/whk/whk-005_1z.jpg


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## Lilysmommy

Wet cat food can be a good treat or supplement to their diet. But don't feed the one you linked - Whiskas is not a good brand. Nor is Friskies, Fancy Feast, etc. Try looking for some of the brands that are suggested for dry foods, they usually have canned food available too - Solid Gold, Wellness, Natural Balance, Chicken Soup, etc.

You'll also want to look at the DMB protein and fat. Protein is a bit less of a concern with canned food, because it has so much moisture in it that help the kidneys process the protein. But canned foods are often high in fat, 20-30%, so you'll probably want to be careful with that. There's an explanation for how to calculate DMB here - http://www.hedgehogcentral.com/forums/12-diet-nutrition/19-soft-food-recommendations.html Even just as a treat, I would try to keep the protein at 40% or below, and the fat no higher than 20%.

Also, if you're still not sure on what you want to try with him, I recommend checking these out, if you can get them - http://www.petsmart.com/product/index.jsp?productId=4390190&f=PAD/psNotAvailInUS/No Lily absolutely loved them, she'd wake out of a dead sleep if she smelled them.  They're similar to the Whiskas (chunks of meat in gravy), but they have better ingredients.


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## GoodandPlenty

I've got a new video coming about exactly this. Might have it in a day or two and will come back to this thread.

Sophie developed severe cystitis from eating dry kibble (the very best quality of course). She also became dehydrated which made things even worse. She was bleeding a lot (blood in urine), and it took several months to work out what was happening. She is now on a 100% wet food diet and fully recovered (possibly without permanent damage).

She may not require a 100% wet food diet at this point, but I am keeping her on it because of her hydration issues.
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This site was written by a vet and is very interesting. I have not gone the whole DIY route, but make custom blends with store bought foods: Natural Balance canned foods, Gerber and Beechnut baby foods (meats and vegetables), ground kibble . . .

http://www.catinfo.org/
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Lillysmommy is right about watching out for the true energy density of canned foods (convert DMB for a true look at the percentages - Dry Matter Basis). I use the canned food as the base ingredient for her mix, but in small amounts. Sophie loves the canned foods and I hide everything else in them.

I use vegetable baby foods to add bulk and lower total energy density so that I can control weight. (She hated vegetables, so I had to start with just a gram or two and work my way up.)

Her current recipe is: 4 grams canned food or meat baby food; 10 grams vegetable mix baby food; 1.5 grams ground kibble; a bit of water to thin mixture. She gets three or four dishes of this each night.
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"Protein is a bit less of a concern with canned food, because it has so much moisture in it that help the kidneys process the protein."

This is a subject that I am more aware of because dry kibble was killing Sophie.  Most people feed only kibble and never have a problem.


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## MochiAndMe

GoodandPlenty, does the wet food dry up over night? Just curious, since if I ever find a wet food Mochi actually likes (picky girl tricked me...she ate it the first time, then ignored it all the other times) I would like to make it part of her meal instead of a treat.


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## Chloethehedgie7

It might do something to their stool. :/ I would honestly get dry cat food instead. But what a nice treat!


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## GoodandPlenty

> GoodandPlenty, does the wet food dry up over night? Just curious, since if I ever find a wet food Mochi actually likes (picky girl tricked me...she ate it the first time, then ignored it all the other times) I would like to make it part of her meal instead of a treat.


Yes and no, but easily dealt with. Some wet foods are wet enough that they are not going to dry out very much at all. For me, this is mostly the vegetable mix baby foods. Other foods will dry out, and can do so quite quickly. Sophie will not eat wet foods that have started to dry out. What I do for wet foods - in my case, blends of several items - is thin the consistency of the mix with a bit of water.

It doesn't take much water do the trick. Start out with just a very little bit. I have a little bitty squeeze bottle (35 ml / ~1 tbs), and squirt in little shots of water.

I am probably thinning her food more than needed, but do so because that is a tool for increasing hydration. I aim for a consistency that just holds shape - short of slumping too much, and way short of 'soupy'.

You can try different tricks to help with food acceptance. For example, Sophie has always completely refused all vegetables. Because the are so useful as a low energy but low energy filler ingredient, I had to find a way to add them over her objections. Using baby food instead of fresh helped. The big breakthrough was giving her only a very small amount in her mix - getting her used to the taste - and then increasing the amount. Veggies have become a key item in her diet, and to my surprise it is working very well.

I'll try to finish up the video in the next day or two. Hopefully, there will be ideas here and there that people can adapt to their own needs and circumstances.


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## Annie&Tibbers

Another trick I've heard about for overnight feeding of wet foods is to do two helpings: one fresh-thawed, and the other frozen so it will thaw out overnight and be nicely wet for midnight-munchies.


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## Lilysmommy

Chloethehedgie7 said:


> It might do something to their stool. :/ I would honestly get dry cat food instead. But what a nice treat!


Once they get used to it, there shouldn't be much difference, really. As with introducing any food, you might see softer or slightly green poops the first couple days while their system gets used to it, but either Kalandra or Nancy (or both?) have said that when they've had hedgehogs on a soft-food-only diet, there was no big difference in poop.


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## MochiAndMe

Thanks for the suggestions. Now the first step is seeing if she would eat it again. I'm planning to buy a small can or pouch, dipping a mealworm in it, and when she eats the mealie maybe she'll learn she can eat the canned food too.


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## soile6661

@Lilysmommy thanks a lot! i'm getting him some royal canin wet & dry food soon and i already checked the protein & fat just like you wrote, will remember that for future as well, it's my first hedgehog so i'm glad for your help :razz:


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## Tongue_Flicker

you can also soak dry cat food in veggie or some kind of hedgie safe fruit juice for about 15 minutes then drain it off before feeding. my hedgies prefer it this way and they eat way more than the usual than giving them just dry cat food.


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## GoodandPlenty

Here are a couple of wet-food related videos. The first is more of a 'podcast' than a video. I'm all talk. Ha!

Preparing wet food blend. #1
(18:08)





The second is an 'action' video. I prepared Sophie's two early-night wet-food dishes.
Preparing wet food blend. #2
(11:12)





I mix two dishes of wet food for Sophie in this video. The dishes are separate blends, which adds variety to her diet. She gets these two dishes in the early-night, and one or two more dishes late-night.

Each dish has 1.5 grams of ground "Solid Gold Katz-n-Flocken, Lamb"; 4 grams of a meat canned food (mostly Natural Balance and Merrick) or baby food (Gerber or Beechnut; 10 grams of a vegetable mix; and a bit of water to adjust consistency. This blend is specific to Sophie's needs. Every animal has different requirements and priorities.

I'm using a My Weigh i300 digital scale. It holds up to 300 grams and as a one-tenth gram sensitivity. I got it from Old Will Knott Scales .com (About $50, including 200 gram calibration weight and shipping.)


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## soile6661

so, well my hedgehog didn't even touch it, i mixed it with his dried food and he didn't eat anything tonight as i saw in the morning the bowl was full, so i thrashed it and filled it with his dried food and saw him eating it then..**** he literally eats ONLY dried food, i tried to give him an apple and he didnt even taste it.. i'll keep trying with other fruits, and kinda curious if he'll like mealworms im getting him soon lol


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## GoodandPlenty

If it is something that you really want to do, there are strategies that you can use. I got Sophie off of dry kibble because of medical necessity, but believe that we are better off for it.

http://www.catinfo.org/#Transitioning_Dry_Food_Addicts_to_Canned_Food_

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I expect that the biggest obstacle will generally be the owner. Animals are pretty good at adapting to their environments. Plunking down a bowl of kibble is easy. Crafting and monitoring an ideal diet is not. Sophie's behaviors and preferences can sometimes be aggravating, but I mostly enjoy the process. That makes a big difference.

Keep at it. Keep notes. Try some old-fashioned trickery . . .


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## GoodandPlenty

> I expect that the biggest obstacle will generally be the owner.


I was looking over my post and wondering if this might be taken in a way differently than I meant.

People that come here to learn stuff and ask questions and go the extra mile to do their best for their hedgehogs --- people here are likely to be owners that make serious efforts to give their hedgies the best of everything. I was referencing people that never really try; people that try something once and quit if it doesn't work; people that simply ignore inconvenient truths.

Of all the people that have wondered if a hedgehog would be good for them, or for their kid, or whatever - I almost always make it sound like a lot more trouble than it really is.


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## MochiAndMe

I managed to trick my girl into trying and eating wet cat food last night. I have some freeze dried mealworms (she eats live too) that I mixed in with a bit of wet cat food. She loves her mealworms, and when I woke up, the wet cat food with mealies hiding in it was gone.


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