Daily MENU + about our other food;
This is our daily menu (roughly) at the moment;
· 6-10 crickets (depending on their size) or 1-3 grasshoppers (or few crickets and one grasshopper or or or)
· 2-6 small shrimps/snails
· 1 teaspoonful of cat kibbles
· 1,5 teaspoonful of ground meat, chicken (haven't tried fish yet)
and
2-7 buffalos and/or mealworms
+ one super worm
Sometimes I add, depending on the day;
--- one or two dried silkworms (but I've come to the conclusion Hugo prefers his meal fresh and watery instead of dried and crunchy :D) Gonna have to order pillars next, too.
--- a few pieces of cottage cheese/cooked carrot/some other fruit or vegetable
--- 1 teaspoonful of some mash (baby food); mango didn't go down that well, or at all, really. Next I wanna try carrot mash.
Also, every day I add some Nekton Rep vitamin supliment to his food and almost every day one or two drops of Evening Primrose oil to prevent his skin from drying.
Yep. That's roughly what we give Hugo every day or have given so far, at least. We'll keep an eye on his weight and change the diet accordingly if need be -- the amount of food we give might actually sound a lot to some, but so far Hugo hasn't proven himself to be an overeater. He always leaves some cat kibbles, insects (or their legs. Eew.) or something else uneaten. As said, mango didn't go down at all, cottage cheese did. Tonight I think I'll be leaving the groundmeat/chicken out (or give very little) to see if that'll get him to eat more of the other stuff.
As soon as the netstore has cockroaches, we'll be ordering them as well :)
At the moment the dry cat food we've given Hugo is Friskies; kitten, but we also have Royal Canin -- the thing is, I've read some pretty conflicting comments when it comes to the latter. Some say they've never had any issues with RC and some refuse to give it to their hedgehogs mostly because it includes BHA which has been said to cause tumours. I think we'll be trying Royal Canin Light, though.
The bugs, then. We order everything from a finnish site called petshop.fi -- I'd imagine a site similar to that one would be EXOTICNUTRITION.COM? We use lucky reptile HERP DINER'S crickets, grasshoppers and their small shrimps. ZOO MED'S and EXO TERRA'S cans are good too. Also, the silkworms we have are EXOTIC LIFE'S.
The chicken we've given has been ALMO NATURE'S chicken; it's the only wet cat food I approve. Although in the future I think we'll just buy regular chicken fillet strips or whatever they are called and cook them ourselves. Cheaper, I imagine.
Sounds like a hassle? IT'S NOT!! Trust me on this one: I've noticed the easiest way is to just freeze everything. We cook the meat and open the canned insects and then mix them up into good sized portions and put most of them into minigrip bags and into freezer. The cans stay good for a few days in the fridge just like the cooked meat, and after that, it's just so damn easy when all you gotta do is take out a minigrip bag, empty it into the food bowl and let it melt a bit. Then it's just a question of adding the dry stuff, the vitamins and oil and whatnot and then, all ready to be served :)
I think only with time you'll find the right daily menu for your own little one and till we do, we're just gonna try everything.
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With some points I agree and with some points I disagree, but still a few LINKS;
hedgehog-nutrition
About Fiber Digestion