hedge hog food

**dab_20** · 10-06-2005, 06:34 PM

i am prolly getting a hedge hog this weekend. i know you are supposed to feed hedge hogs, cat food. instead of going out and buying cat food, cant i just feed it kitten food? i have a kitten, so it would be easier.

**CathyBogart** · 10-06-2005, 10:39 PM

Hedgies are primarily insectivorous. You can base their diet on a combination of dog and kitten food, but it is more often reccommended to go for a formulated hedgie food. Either way, they still need lots of insects too.

Here's a link to a good care sheet with good info on their diet. I would also strongly reccommend talking to the folks at www.chins-n-quills.com about dietary and other needs before getting the hedgie.

http://www.animalsforawareness.org/cs_hedgehog.html

**dab_20** · 10-07-2005, 07:49 AM

well, they dont have hedgie food at our pet stores, or at least on the websites. (petco and petsmart) so i think i will feed it kitten food. and some worms and crickets. (yuck!) lol

-Can i get crickets at pet stores?

**buttercup132** · 10-07-2005, 01:57 PM

ya you can get the crickets from pet smart although the people at my petsmart are complete idiots and dont know how to count crickets they also sell worms there, as for the food feed it cat food for now then get some hedgie food from maybe the internet like order it and it will come in the mail...

**jesse_3** · 10-07-2005, 11:44 PM

We feed Splinter Purina One Health Care Management. We are working on getting more crickets, but, whe can't find any in town, so next time we go to Grand Forks (about an hour away) we will grab a few. Anyways, I agree, you could go online and order some, but I would recommend feeding it cat food. Oh, and one more thing, when you switch cat food, make sure that you have some of their old cat food to mix, it's bad on their stomachs if you switch immediately!

Steph, Jesse, and Splinter

**dab_20** · 10-09-2005, 09:16 PM

i got a hedge hog this weekend! i named him spike. a 7 month old male. he is an african pygmy hedge hog (salt n' pepper) he hisses and rolls up in a ball when you pick him up but when he gets comfortable (about 30 seconds later) he unrolls and crawls around. its sooo cute! and he lives in a 2' by 4' fish tank. he was fed some kind of premium blend hedge hog food, but we couldnt find that kind so we got something different. we are mixing his old food and new food together. they only gave us about 3 days worth of his old food, so it will be about 6 days until we totally switch him to the other food. i really love playing with him, hes a sweetie.

p.s. i got a 8 1/2'' wheel. is that too small??