Absolutely not.
I saw a video from a hedgehog hospital with a hedgehog that had been fed on mealworms and, the problem is, that if a hedgehog’s main diet is mealworms – it will destroy their bone density.
This poor hedgehog couldn’t hardly walk as his bones were so weak, and as he was unable to go back into the wild and in immense pain, they had no option but to put him to sleep.
They might enjoy eating mealworms, but it’s a quick way to completely destroy a hedgehogs health, so please do not do it.
It’s easy and simple to feed hedgehogs, there are plenty of hedgehog food about by different brands, you can easily purchase them online (most expensive) garden centres, pet shops and even supermarkets now sell hedgehog food, also if you visit a farm, you might be able to get a bigger bag for less of the cost.
Also they really enjoy wet dog or cat food – make sure it’s in jelly as the gravy can cause diaherra, and just give them water – a lot of people on here only give them rain water, but I give them tap as I haven’t got a water butt and they drink it.
Please do not give them mealworms, if you are unsure about what to give hedgehogs, please always follow the advice from a UK hedgehog site, such as BBPS, or get info from here, or you could ring a UK hedgehog hospital to get advice.
I say UK because in America, it seems a lot of people over there give their hedgehogs mealworms and there is even a US hedgehog site that rated a tub of mealworms the second best product (after spikes) to give to hedgehogs.
So don’t follow advice from the US about hedgehogs. Over there, they are allowed to keep hedgehogs in cages indoors and put two together, and all sorts of stuff, that would be a huge issue in the UK. (However, in the US they have pygmy hedgehogs which can’t live in the wild in the US, as they are supposed to be living in Africa, where it’s warmer, as when Pygmy hedgehogs hibernate they are more likely to die, in Africa they don’t hibernate).
And there seems to be vast differences in rules about pygmy hedgehogs and european hedgehogs.
