Hi Hedgie Lover
I think you may be taking it a bit to literally. The whole section from the article about Supplementary food for Hogs says:
“Specially made hedgehog foods both in dry and moist kibble varieties now exist and can be bought from most local pet and garden stores.
Hedgehogs will also relish any combination of meat-based wet dog or cat foods as these are high in the protein that they need. Just remember, they will be getting most of their food from insects and worms in the wild, and this food is only supplementary.”
So it’s saying hedgehog food now exists, but they will also relish cat/dog food. But also if someone comes across a hog, and wonders what to feed it, they are more likely to have cat/dog food available than hog food.
In the past advice used to suggested cat/dog food, when hedgehog food wasn’t widely available or they didn’t know how good or otherwise it was. But there has been more scrutiny on hog foods more recently, so maybe that is why it is now included in the Supplementary Feeding article. It isn’t saying that the hog foods don’t have high protein in them, just that cat/dog foods do.
I’m not sure that ‘experts’ are favouring wet cat/dog food over anything else. Or which ‘experts’ you mean.
Clearly in the middle of winter if it’s below freezing and if you are still feeding, wet cat/dog food is likely to freeze, so it would be more sensible then, if there are hogs around, to offer dried food (I usually provide kitten biscuits because the hogs who decide not to hibernate often seem to be hoglets) (but also provide a source of water that doesn’t freeze). Otherwise they wouldn’t be able to eat the food anyway. if it was frozen.
I think often Rescues are a bit strapped for cash, so some may offer whatever is afforable or has been donated. But they do use cat biscuits as well, I believe. Cat/dog food can vary as to protein content as well as to calcium/phosphorous ratio. As I imagine does hog food.
None of it is ideal – hogs’ wild food is the best for them. The ideal is to create enough habitat for the hogs so that they don’t need to be supplementary fed at all. But that isn’t likely to happen in a hurry, if at all.
