Is fish based food good or bad ?

[Quillshoggie]

Hi, I’ve been doing quite a lot of research on the hedgehog diet recently and there have been a lot of different opinions on this topic. Vale wildlife says that it’s just a myth and they can have fish based but some hedgehogs might be put off by the smell. Others like the rspca just say they can’t have it. I just thought I would ask your options on it. Thank you 🙂

[Nic]

Hi Quillshoggie

I would rely on the advice from Vale Wildlife. They have a lot of experience with hedgehogs and are generally accepted to be one of the authorities on good hog care. The RSPCA deal with all animals and do not specialise in hedgehogs in particular. Some years back there was a theory doing the rounds that hogs should not be fed fish food. Where it came from no-one seemed to know. But, it became very widespread and in some cases has persisted. Probably in reality, you wouldn’t want to feed hogs on actual fish, but fish cat/dog food probably has very little fish in it. But if you are concerned, there are other flavours of cat/dog food widely available. i.e. chicken flavour, which I tend to use, but if there was no choice I would listen to Vale Wildlife and accept that fish flavoured cat/dog food is ok.

I am assuming you are talking about wild hedgehogs here, where what we offer them is supplementary to what they find for themselves in the wild.

[Quillshoggie]

Thanks Nic.
that’s what I thought vale have a lot more experience than the rspca. I feed the hogs in my garden spikes dry crunchy food but I wanted to know just in case I needed to feed them some cat food. thank you so much for the information 🙂

[stef]

There is so little actual fish in the food it’s not worth worrying about – however don’t start giving them tins of fish.
Vale’s advice is always correct

[Author]

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