Mealworms

[NiamhsNan]

Hi,
Can someone please advise on whether or not I can feed mealworms to hedgehogs?
I seem to have had conflicting advice and sadly I have been feeding a few mealworm each evening to my little visitor. Who incidentally absolutely loves them.
I don’t want to cause it any harm and I”m now worried that the previous advice was wrong……

[stef]

Hi

No you cannot feed mealworms. A few with cat/dog food is fine but not any quantity.
Mealworms have been linked to metabolic bone disease in hogs, and although hogs love them, they aren’t good.
Nic has a great article which hopefully she will post on here for you later

[NiamhsNan]

Hi Stef
Thank you for getting back to me. I won’t be feeding him/her any more. I’ll only be giving the kibble type biscuits specifically for hedgehogs from now on as the little sweetheart doesn’t like dog or cat food.
I hope to hear from Nic in the coming days…..
Really helpful site – thanks everyone . x

[Nic]

Hi NiamsNan

Not sure if this is the one Stef was thinking of, but it contains some useful information from Vale Wildlife.

http://www.valewildlife.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Feeding-wild-hedgehogs.pdf

Many of us were caught out before the dangers of mealworms became more widely known, so you’re not the only one! Personally I decided not to feed them at all, because there’s no way of knowing how many they pick up from elsewhere. But it sounds as if you’ve also decided not to feed mealworms at all. Have you tried the hog with cat or kitten biscuits? The hog might eat those.

Good luck and happy hog watching.

[stef]

Thanks Nic, it’s not, but this is fine too. You normally give people the full explaination about mealworms which is great

[NiamhsNan]

Thank you ladies. Really useful info to me as its only recently I’ve been lucky enough to have a prickly garden visitor.
Mealworms are no long on the menu – but the hedgehog ‘kibble’ is still going well.
He/she doesn’t ever eat the cat/dog/hedgehog wet food I’ve been putting out. Is there any other alternatives? I did wonder about cooked chicken?

[Nic]

Hi NiamhsNan

If the hedgehog kibble is being eaten, I would stick with that. I wouldn’t feed cooked chicken, if you check the table in that link from above, you’ll see that raw chicken has nearly as bad a calcium/phosphorous ratio as mealworms, so I’m thinking how much difference can it make if it’s cooked.

But some hogs who won’t eat wet cat/dog food, will eat cat/kitten biscuits, so they may be worth try.

[NiamhsNan]

Once again – many thanks.
I’ll try a few kitten biscuits as you’ve suggested.
It’s a very busy little hedgehog. It takes fresh brambles and leaves into the entrance of the hog house every day. x

[Author]

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