# Mealworms?



## abbys (Oct 13, 2012)

How vital are mealworms for a hedgie's diet? I feed my hedgie a mixture of three high-quality dry cat & dog foods, along with a special treat about once a week (like peanut butter or chicken). I thought that was fine, but I see a lot of owners feed mealworms to the hogs and want to make sure I'm not preventing my little one from getting all the nutrients he needs.


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## jholstein11 (Dec 13, 2012)

I think they're mostly for treats. My hedgie doesn't like them and he's doing just fine.


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## RondackHiker (Jan 21, 2013)

I've been wondering this as well. I found a site that said the hedgies need insects an need to hunt the insects. Knarla can handle meal worms, but I'm not sure how'd she handle a live cricket. She couldn't stalk it by sight.

Is there a good site for us newbie owners to look at nutrition? Like, what vitamins they need and what percentages of fat and protein and so on. I've been looking and seeing things about what is good or bad, but no info on what the levels should be.


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## jholstein11 (Dec 13, 2012)

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=19408

a great list of treats.


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## MomLady (Aug 14, 2010)

Well it is my feeling that since hedgehogs are insectivores, they should be eating SOME insects.

But some (most?) hedgehogs are very stubborn and don't like to try new foods--sometimes you have to try mealworms several times. It took months for my girl Nara to even try one. Once she did, she can't get enough. "WORMS" is one of the words I swear she understands!!  

Once they have had the live ones, they won't touch the freeze-dried. The freeze-dried have been known to cause blockages.

Mealworms are easy to get, most pet stores have them--they are refrigerated, so you may have to ask. Often they are located in the reptile or fish department. 

I feed her with a pair of soft plastic tweezers. 

She also enjoys her crickets too. I block the drain in the bathtub and put the crickets in and then let her chase them. (I realize most hedgehogs don't have their own bathtub, but mine does) :lol: It is so much fun watching her hunt them. 

I am not sure about blind hedgies, since they hunt pretty much by smell. You could always get live crickets and feed them with chopsticks or tweezers.

I have never fed the canned crickets, I hear they smell AWFUL. And you have to use them up within a few days of opening the can. The pet stores in our area sell crickets individually or in a handy plastic box of 24. I prefer the plastic boxes, I have had crickets chew thru the plastic bag and escape. EWWWW! Also, I chop up some carrots and gut feed the crickets first.

If the info isn't on this site, (check the stickies) there are some good fact sheets about the nutritional content of insects on the HWS site. 

Good luck and have fun!!

ML


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## gogrnny1955 (Jul 6, 2011)

Wow, I'm wondering if you folks that do not feed the mealworms don't because of your hang up over it being a bug?
Hedgehogs in the wild live on insects not cat or as someone mentioned cat and dog food.
So these guys IMO should be feed bugs each and every single day.
We raise our own and have no problem providing what they not only need but want.
As well as 3 or more different cat foods.
Don't get too mad at me, I learned from here what to feed them and mine all look for the bugs first to eat and never leave a piece behind.We feed around 10 worms a day each.
Rarely have we had any health issues either. :roll:


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## RondackHiker (Jan 21, 2013)

I have no problems feeding bugs. I've just heard mixed things. One site said bugs should be a treat, one to two bugs a week tops. Another said their main diet should be bugs. One said to feed super worms, another not.

I've been doing a veggie or a mealworm or two a day. She doesn't eat veggies well. One site said they should only get 1tbsp of food a day and 1 mealworm a day tops. I've fed her what she eats, which is more than that, but limited the worms.

Should I give her more? Or do I skip insects on days she gets a bit of chicken or a veggie?


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## Erizo (Jul 25, 2012)

Vital? No. Desirable? Perhaps. I feed live mealworms as a treat. She gets 20 day. (That is more than most hedgies get I think, but keeping weight on her has long been a challenge, so a goodly number of mealies seems to pose no problem.) I think that mealworms are a choice for the owner. She LOVES mealies, so I'm happy to feed them as a treat. She get 13 every afternoon and 7 every night.

I have no interest in raising mealworms, but buying in bulk works quite well for me. This video discusses how I manage mealworms:
(34:06)
mealworms-care-storage-13-01-17.mp4





She loves crickets too, but for me they are a lot more trouble, so she only gets them about once a month. I'll get 25 and feed 5 a day for 5 days. (There's a 'cricket management' video posted as well: crickets-13-01-15.mp4) I just get enough that they all get fed in a few days. If you wanted to feed a lot of crickets, then what I do would be too expensive and you'd need to care for crickets, which I have no interest in doing.)

My feeling is that most hedgies that get mealies get about 5 every other day or about 5 every day. Those are the numbers that I see most often. A detailed survey would be very interesting, because there's a good chance that I'm reading recommendations from the same people again and again, and that my information comes from a limited, non-representative data set.

My girl wouldn't last long if she had had to hunt. Ha! She can scurry over to a mealie, but don't think she'd ever catch a cricket. Our efforts there didn't work out too well. We both tried though.

Insectavora is no longer a recognized grouping. Hedgehogs, I think, are considered generally omnivorous, i.e., they'll eat what they find.

Our hedgies have many 'wild instincts', which I think are important to respect, but they are not wild hedgehogs, a point worth keeping in mind as it sometimes get lost in discussions.


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## abbys (Oct 13, 2012)

Thanks for all the info! My secret hope was that the answer would be "no, they aren't necessary," because worms really freak me out. But I also know that they're insectivores in the wild, so I'll try to suck it up and do what's best for Piggy - as long as he doesn't mind me handling the worms with gloves and tweezers and running away as soon as I drop it in front of him...


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## RondackHiker (Jan 21, 2013)

Abbys, the ones I've been feeding are from the fridge, so they're not squirmy, if that helps.


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## jholstein11 (Dec 13, 2012)

i have zero issues with bugs. my issue is a picky butt hedgehog. :lol:


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## Mriao (Jan 20, 2013)

gogrnny1955 said:


> Wow, I'm wondering if you folks that do not feed the mealworms don't because of your hang up over it being a bug?
> Hedgehogs in the wild live on insects not cat or as someone mentioned cat and dog food.
> So these guys IMO should be feed bugs each and every single day.
> We raise our own and have no problem providing what they not only need but want.
> ...


I know that many users may be squeamish when it comes to feeding bugs, but I'm sure that for equally as many, that is not the case. Not everybody is afraid of bugs. I know that I'm certainly not, and I would feed them to my hedgehog, but she won't even consider touching them. Therefore, it's simply not possible for her to eat them "every day", as you suggested.

Hedgehogs in the wild are European hedgehogs. Not African Pygmy hedgehogs, which are a domesticated hybrid. "_____ is what it would do in the wild" does not apply here, simply because African Pygmy hedgehogs do not exist in the wild. If an African pygmy hedgehog was set free into the wild, it would probably die within days. They do not have the instinct to survive.


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## LizardGirl (Aug 25, 2008)

Mriao said:


> gogrnny1955 said:
> 
> 
> > Wow, I'm wondering if you folks that do not feed the mealworms don't because of your hang up over it being a bug?
> ...


I have to disagree. The whole idea of "our hedgehogs have been captive bred for a while so they are nothing like their wild ancestors" is ridiculous. It makes them sound like they've been grown in a lab and have no natural instincts, which they most certainly do. I have no doubt that if you released a pet hedgehog into their *natural* environment in Africa, that some could survive. I have a few that have very strong instincts for catching and eating insects, and impressive reflexes. You have to give them a little more credit, for being a "species" that has only been bred in captivity for a few decades. There are wild European hedgehogs as well as wild African hedgehogs, which is where ours are from. "___ is what it would do in the wild" absolutely applies, you just have to look at both species that our pets originate from.

On the topic of the thread, insects are not necessary in the diet if you're feeding a balanced cat or dog food, though they're very beneficial and add a lot of enrichment to the lives of the hedgies that will eat them.  If you check out the Nutrition chapter of my care book (link in my signature), I have a section called The DIY Diet that talks about a hedgehog's nutritional needs and how we can (or can try) to provide them.

Personally, for our hedgies that aren't interested in eating live or dry roasted insects, I have a supplement mix that has powdered mealworms, roaches, etc. (with balanced calcium, because insects are high in phosphorus) that I dust on their food. Along with it being incredibly nutritious, it adds a lot of fiber that our hedgies don't get with straight cat food and I've seen it do wonders for soft poop!


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## Alex (Dec 7, 2012)

Abbys; they do not need them if they're getting the proper nutrients they need from their daily diet; I think the majority of the site just uses them as treats, that's what I do. But it sounds like your hedgie is getting all the nutriets and vitamins she needs from her food, so if you want to give them to her as treats, However, I'd advise against feeding your hedgie peanutbutter. Its best to not give them anything sticky or chewy, because when it gets stuck in their teeth or the roof of their mouths, they tend to try and claw at it, and that can cause damage to their eyes or just cuts if they try and scratch at it too much. Just a suggestion...something other than peanut butter would be good for them


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## Mriao (Jan 20, 2013)

LizardGirl said:


> Mriao said:
> 
> 
> > gogrnny1955 said:
> ...


I think you may have misinterpreted me. Am I saying that all domesticated hedgehogs would absolutely die if they were released into their natural environment? Not at all. It was a general statement, not a fact. If your hedgehog has extremely strong instincts when it comes to catching insects and such, great.

However, I doubt anybody on this forum would be willing to bring an African Pygmy hedgehog *to* Africa and release it, in order to test the theory of it being capable of survival, so as it is, I think it's useless to debate something that will likely never come into play.

My point in posting that reply was that Gogrnny1955 cannot possibly know that the African Pygmy species of hedgehog in particular would survive on insects in the wild, just like I don't know that they wouldn't. There is no proof (that I know of) to back it up, so it's merely an empty statement, as of now. Therefore, no, "____ is what they would do in the wild" does *not* apply, because nobody actually knows. African Pygmies do have things in common with their wild ancestors, but keep in mind that they are domesticated, and whether or not they would survive in the wild would depend on the individual hedgehog.


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## LizardGirl (Aug 25, 2008)

> I think you may have misinterpreted me. Am I saying that all domesticated hedgehogs would absolutely die if they were released into their natural environment? Not at all. It was a general statement, not a fact. If your hedgehog has extremely strong instincts when it comes to catching insects and such, great.
> 
> However, I doubt anybody on this forum would be willing to bring an African Pygmy hedgehog to Africa and release it, in order to test the theory of it being capable of survival, so as it is, I think it's useless to debate something that will likely never come into play.
> 
> My point in posting that reply was that Gogrnny1955 cannot possibly know that the African Pygmy species of hedgehog in particular would survive on insects in the wild, just like I don't know that they wouldn't. There is no proof (that I know of) to back it up, so it's merely an empty statement, as of now. Therefore, no, "____ is what they would do in the wild" does not apply, because nobody actually knows. African Pygmies do have things in common with their wild ancestors, but keep in mind that they are domesticated, and whether or not they would survive in the wild would depend on the individual hedgehog.


I don't mean to keep arguing with you and getting this thread further off topic, but I can't help but try to correct something that's blatantly wrong so no other members get the wrong impression. It being "useless to debate something that will likely never come into play" is a silly excuse to not justify a fact. The fact is, hedgehogs are not that far off from their wild ancestors, even though no one is going to go dump their pet in Africa. They DO have instincts, which you claimed they do not. Knowing whether they eat insects in the wild is one of the most simple, obvious facts of hedgehogs of all species. That's why they were classified as insectivores before the class was dissipated into others. Four-toed and Algerian hedgehogs in the wild primarily eat soft-bodied insects, though they eat insects of all kinds, and scavenge on many other things like the young of other mammals, carrion, and small amounts of vegetation. There are people in the world whose lives are dedicated to going out and observing each species' habitat, habits, etc. It's not true that "no one knows" - it may not be extremely well understood, but there is no "I have no idea if hedgehogs eat bugs or if they eat grass and bark in the wild" - they eat bugs.


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## Mriao (Jan 20, 2013)

LizardGirl said:


> > I think you may have misinterpreted me. Am I saying that all domesticated hedgehogs would absolutely die if they were released into their natural environment? Not at all. It was a general statement, not a fact. If your hedgehog has extremely strong instincts when it comes to catching insects and such, great.
> >
> > However, I doubt anybody on this forum would be willing to bring an African Pygmy hedgehog to Africa and release it, in order to test the theory of it being capable of survival, so as it is, I think it's useless to debate something that will likely never come into play.
> >
> ...


They have instincts, yes. I did not claim that they didn't. You're stuck on one sentence that was worded improperly, despite the fact that I corrected myself various times in my last response, stating what I meant. Like I said, you're misunderstanding me, although I don't see how. I didn't even suggest that they ate something else. All I stated was that whether or not an African Pygmy hedgehog would actually hunt insects and survive in the wild depends on the individual hedgehog. For example, I know that mine likely would not, because she simply has no interest in bugs and seems to ignore them entirely. It appears that she doesn't even grasp that they are food. Therefore, she would not have the instincts to survive in the wild. Yours, however, probably would. It depends on the individual. As I've stated various times. However, you appear to believe that I'm flaunting around falsified facts, when I'm doing nothing of the sort.

Regardless, I'm honestly done with this thread, since you clearly aren't taking the time to think about what I'm saying. Don't mistake this as me brushing you aside. I have seen many, many of your posts on these forums, and I have immense respect for you. You're a knowledgeable person. However, you're simply misunderstanding me entirely, and I don't feel the need to attempt to explain myself repeatedly when it serves no purpose.


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## LizardGirl (Aug 25, 2008)

Mriao, you honestly sometimes seem to be on this forum purely to argue with people. The question here was simply whether hedgehogs were "made" to eat insects, which they were. You made a poorly worded or poorly thought out reply, and so people correct you so that other readers aren't confused. You get mad over a simple correction, correct yourself somehow making yourself more incorrect, and get mad again when you're corrected further. Try reading your posts again. I just read them several times and I think you may think you said something that you didn't, or you said something you didn't think you did. Either way, your posts are not entirely accurate in representing hedgehogs as far as their diets or instincts go, and in a public forum, people are welcome to reply, whether you agree with what they have to say or not - you'll have to get used to that. 

Hedgehogs have instincts. Hedgehogs were made to eat primarily insects, and that's what they need nutritionally, just like cats need meat and horses need hay. Not all hedgehogs as pets will eat insects, so we feed cat food as a convenient, complete staple. However, feeding insects to those that will eat them is a good thing.

It's that simple.


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## Mriao (Jan 20, 2013)

I've been on this forum for a few days, and this is the only argument I've gotten into, so I'm honestly not sure how I appear to be using the site purely for arguments. Regardless, I haven't gotten mad over a correction- I haven't gotten angry at all. Perhaps it seemed that way- I've been ill recently, so I'll admit that I haven't been very careful when it comes to the things that I say. Thus, I may have seemed argumentative, or said something that I did not intend to. You have my sincerest apologies for that.


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## LizardGirl (Aug 25, 2008)

Mriao, ill be sending you a PM in a bit. 

Sorry OP for hijacking your thread!


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