Hedgie Lover, I too have fretted about what to feed my visiting hogs. Fortunately, I have long known that mealworms, etc. are no good so my visitors have never been fed junk food at my house. That video link is the first time I have seen the impact – itās horrible.
I use to feed Spikeās dry food but found it very expensive in the local garden centre (my only source except for on-line). So, I went to my supermarket armed with a photo of the Spike ingredients and compared them to readily available cat food/biscuits. Surprisingly, there is not much difference and your post above struck a chord as I now use Harringtonās Chicken and Rice biscuits.
These are the ingredients of the various products (I am assuming like human food, greatest ingredient is listed first).
Spikeās Dry:
Rice, poultry meal, maize, poultry fat, vitamins, minerals
Spikeās semi-moist:
Poultry meat meal, white rice, chicken livers, vitamins and minerals.
Harringtonās chicken and rice:
Chicken meat meal, maize, rice, poultry fat, fish oil, vitamins and minerals
The ingredients by type for each are (dry/semi-moist/Harringtonās):
Protein – 25%/25%/30%
Oil – 12%/13%/12%
Fibre – 3%/0.6%/2.5%
Ash – 9.4%/8%/7.5%
I was also concerned about the calcium:phosphorus ratio so I researched that too! Harringtonās is 1.4:1 which I understand is good.
You can see there is a vegetative element in each, including the specialist hog food. So I donāt think you need to worry too much about having fed something that is not good for them.
We all know that hogs are fussy eaters and donāt like change. I switched early this summer to my researched āpetā food and have been eaten out of house and home without any obvious detrimental affect including my pocket!
