What food is best ?
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Hello,
We have been feeding our hedgehogs cat food but we would really love to switch to a specialist hedgehog food .
Does anyone have any recommendations on the best food
Thanks in advance 🙂Hello I have always fed my hogs with Spikes dried food, they love it . I use crunchy and semi moist. But was unable to get it recently due to shops being closed and was double the price on line, so I bought some dried cat biscuits and they eat it all they love them as well . Will go back to hog food when Pets at home are open again , they have it the best price I have found .
Hello scoobysue ,
Thank you so much I will have a look at spikes. I was actually thinking of getting it but I thought I’d double check first. Also I’m pretty sure that Pets at home deliver but I don’t know if they only deliver certain things or whether they will be more expensive.
thank you so much and have fun with the hoggies 🙂I don’t know about ‘best’ but I’ve been using Maltby’s dried hedgehog food for the past couple of years, the hogs love it, the cats turn their noses up at it, and it’s reasonably priced from eBay or Amazon.
Hello,
We tried “Spike” on our hedgehogs when we started out. They ate some but weren’t overly keen. I’m not sure why it needs to be that colour either. We then bought some Hedgehog food from ArkWildlife and first of all tried it against Spike. The hogs absolutely loved it and when given the choice ate the ArkWildlife food over the Spike again and again. You can buy it in bulk so it works out cheaper, delivery is normally the next day if you order in the morning and if you order enough (£25) or top up with bird food to the required value, which we also buy from them, then delivery is free.
We use nothing else, they really “enjoy” eating and crunching on it.
Goes without saying to provide plenty of water.
Because we buy our wildlife foods in bulk its a good idea to store it in plastic bins or boxes to keep it fresh and stops any problems with mice (who also like it).
Colin.
If your hogs are happily eating the cat food that you’re giving them then just leave it at that. The specialist hog food isn’t far different and as you’ll see from the various messages above hogs don’t always like it. Plus it’s usually more expensive.
If you want to change then the best would be to go for a small dog food which is nutrionally better, but it has to be small dog or the biscuits are too big.Nic will usually give you a very consise answer here, but please remember you are supplementing a hogs natural diet not being their sole provider.
We are feeding Spikes dried. It all gets eaten but it is more expensive. But we have done this as they are now a part of our family. But we’ve also fed dried cat biscuits and small dog cheap in home bargains. With small dog you need a variety that is small. I’ve also read you shouldn’t feed fish varieties as they can’t digest it.
Apparently the ‘you shouldn’t feed hogs fish flavoured food’ is an ‘old wives tale’.
This is some information I found, from Vale Wildlife about feeding wild hedgehogs:
http://www.valewildlife.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Feeding-wild-hedgehogs.pdf
If you’ve found something (and it’s decent food) that the hogs like, it’s best not to keep changing it, or they might go on strike for a few days and not eat the new stuff anyway.
Also agree about what we feed being only supplementary. One of the most important things we can do for the hogs is to improve and increase the area of decent habitat so that they can find wild food for themselves. That’s much better and more natural for them than anything we can come up with.
So, it would help the hogs to make our own gardens more wildlife friendly, encourage others to do likewise and link our gardens with other gardens, through hedgehog highways. Hog highways, not only give the hogs access to a wider area to forage in, but also potentially contribute to keeping them off the roads.
I’m not saying don’t offer supplementary food at all. There are times and probably places where it’s difficult for the hogs to find sufficient wild food, so that what we feed can top up what they find in the wild and make a difference. Just that feeding alone is not enough, they need good habitat as well.
Don’t forget to always leave water out for the hogs.
Thank you so much everyone who has helped me out with this. I have just read all the comments and will take everything to mind. I haven’t looked on hedgehog street much lately as we haven’t had any hogs since June , I think they were having their hoglets but about a week ago one came back, it looked like a young one so maybe one of this years hoglets that has left mum.
At the moment we are feeding our hog spike’s dry food but I don’t know if he or she is too keen as not all of it is eaten and we don’t put out a lot. I would say only about 2 tbsp maybe less than that, as you all said only supplementing a hogs natural diet so I will have a look at the small dog food.Since our hog has been back we have been watering our garden with the hose just before he/she comes to try to get the slugs and snails out. Our garden is quite overgrown and full of ivy so I imagine that we get quite a lot of insects
We put out bowls of water as you have said but we’ve had water bowls out there for years now because of our cats ( they are fine with the hogs and usually come in because they are scared of them 😂) we’ve also seen hedgehogs drinking out of our pond which is safe with a ledge and sloping sides if they were to fall in. 🙂
Last year we had a lot of hedgehog activity and I was putting out around 7 (4″ dia) bowls of food a night in two feeding stations. So for me buying bulk was a priority both from a cost perspective and ensuring adequate supplies. I get my Hedgehog nibbles from Food4WildBirds and 40kg cost around £60. My Calci worms I get from Ivel Valley and 10kg costs £59.
Each time I order I think I will have enough for several months but will probably make 3-4 orders in the year.
Not so busy this year to date so have reduced the daily feed to 5 bowls which seems about right.They love meal worms….but don’t..I got me wrist gently slapped for feeding them mealworms last year.
They love them, but will apparently ‘neglect’ their normal diets if they are available.
From experience, calciworms…as a base mixed with any Proprietary branded hedgehog food.
Now the trick, take the gravy from your dog/cat food, mix it with warm water add it to the above…And allow to stand for an hour or so…hoy a very small amount of mealworms in…and serve.
The hogs love it…..but so do the slugs…result well fed hedgehogs and less slug problems….one downside.
It’s a lovely experience sitting in the garden, late at night, glass of wine, watching and listening to the hogs getting ‘tucked in’ …but..crackling on the dried food..as opposed to the crunching and slurping on the ‘natural food’ can be somewhat ‘off putting’
Be warned 😁👍
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