# How can i get Hayley to eat more? Urgent!!



## piojillo (Sep 15, 2009)

She's really skinny and i don't see her eating as much now, and she's excersicing ALOT, i've tried giving her the food by hand but she just moves away , she eats Iams dry cat food and occasionnal fruits, HELP


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## Immortalia (Jan 24, 2009)

*Re: How can i get Hayley to eat more? HELP!*

Iams isn't the best of food. I would suggest adding another cat food that is higher in fat. We should be feeding them a mix of 2-3 different brands of high quality cat foods anyways, to give them all the nutrition that they need.

I would suggest looking at Reaper's list of cat food brands : http://www.hedgehogcentral.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=15 and buying the "regular" bags, rather than the light/low fat bags. 
Also, it might be good to put her on something like Royal Canin BabyCat until she gains more weight as well. (Perhaps buy one bag and give it to her till she finishes the bag), then see how she is.

It would also be good to check out other threads, for example, Knitfreak's hedgie is losing weight, so it might be good to take a look at what they are doing, what they are feeding, and the advice that they have been given. ^_^
http://www.hedgehogcentral.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=3507

It sounds like she is a runner, so the higher fat foods which are better quality should help with the weight.


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## piojillo (Sep 15, 2009)

Yeah, I had trouble getting her to notice the wheel now it's the other way around, she's running too much


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## LizardGirl (Aug 25, 2008)

FiaSpice said:


> Iams ins,T a good food for starters, you want to give her a better/higher quality food that isn't full of fillers. Check the food suggestion topic, there's ton in there.


I deleted the double topic, so here's FiaSpice's reply.


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## FiaSpice (Jan 16, 2009)

LizardGirl said:


> FiaSpice said:
> 
> 
> > Iams ins,T a good food for starters, you want to give her a better/higher quality food that isn't full of fillers. Check the food suggestion topic, there's ton in there.
> ...


thanks, I was wondering where did my post go!


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## silvercat (Oct 24, 2008)

You could try feeding some baby foods or soft cat foods? Sylvie get's these as a treat & I know she'll gobbled them up right away. (baby foods that are meat passed, not smooshed peas or anything - the baby foods generally have a higher fat content too).


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## Kalandra (Aug 25, 2008)

I've had this problem with the last 2 rescues I took in. When I switched Poptart from her crappy comfort wheel to a good bucket wheel she dropped weight rapidly. Lucky for me she was the easiest to fix, I'm still battling weight loss and forgetting to eat with my little male.

For Poptart, I added a higher fat/higher calorie food to her diet. While low fat foods are what is recommended, some may actually require a higher calorie food to maintain weight (I've had a few of these over the years) For Poptart this stopped the weight loss and we saw a slow weight gain. I ended up using Halo indoor cat chicken diet for her. It has a small round kibble that she liked a lot.

Sadly, with my male adding a new food wasn't welcomed. I've been battling with him for a while, but he simply refuses to try any new kibble. For him I resorted to removing his wheel for a couple of hours each night. He runs practically non-stop for 7 hrs at night if he has a wheel. I've listened him all night and never once heard him get off to eat. To combat, I ended up removing his wheel for a couple of hours in the middle of the night. During the time his wheel is gone, he eats. I've also started adding a bowl of canned cat food with crushed Halo mixed together. He gets this twice a day. Once at 10pm when he goes back in his cage at night and again at 6am, after I wake him for weight/health check. He eats all of the food at both times. Thankfully we are seeing some weight gain again.


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## meralgia (Sep 16, 2009)

Has he enjoyed mealworms? I've been told to feed them sparingly because they're high in protein and fat.


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## piojillo (Sep 15, 2009)

meralgia said:


> Has he enjoyed mealworms? I've been told to feed them sparingly because they're high in protein and fat.


My mom does NOT want mealworms in the house


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## lane_m (May 20, 2009)

You don't have to feed live ones if your mom doesn't want them in the house. You can buy canned ones (they are dead) or freeze dried ones. Be careful with the freeze dried ones though because feeding too many may cause bowel obstruction. The good thing about the freeze dried ones is that they don't get wasted and don't need to be kept in the fridge. The canned ones go bad after a while. I've never been able to finish a can and I have two hedgehogs :|


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