They may seem timid and slow, but Hedgehogs actually have a pretty greedy eating style as a result of their high energy lifestyle when living in the wild. Did you know they can cover up to 12 miles a night? That’s a lot of foraging! THE SPIKE'S FAMILY - At Spike’s, we value the the health and well-being of wild hedgehogs. It is our priority to help facilitate a flourishing future for hedgehogs. Shop the rest of the range for all of your spikey friends needs

Nutritional Additives (per kg): Vitamin A 19,000 IU, Vitamin D3 1,900 IU, Vitamin E 110mg, Iron (Ferrous Sulphate Monohydrate): 40mg, Copper (Cupric Sulphate Pentahydrate): 7mg, Manganese (Manganous Sulphate Monohydrate): 30mg, Zinc (Zinc Sulphate Monohydrate): 100mg, Iodine (Calcium Iodate Anhydrous): 1mg, Selenium (Sodium Selenite): 0.25mg.

Make your garden a haven for wildlife

Grapes – grapes can be toxic for hedgehogs and can damage their liver and kidneys. Do not feed your hog grapes under any circumstances Place in a shallow dish and put out before dusk in a quiet area of the garden, along with a shallow dish of water. A mature hedgehog can eat about 20g each night. However if by feeding hedgehogs you begin feeding all the other animals in the area (including your neighbours cat!) you may want to consider how you can provide a vip area and exclude the riff raff. This is actually relatively straight forward to do and a well designed hedgehog feeding station can provide the exclusive dining that your spiny guest will be grateful for. You will also be content knowing that your well thought out menu is not feeding tibbles. Wet Cat or Dog Food: Again, people often ask me which one? And the answer is the same as above – it depends on your budget, and the flavour does not matter, for all the reasons already discussed above. We dont feed wet food to our wild garden hogs here. It gets extremely cold in winter and is at risk of freezing, and in warmer weather it is at risk of going off and attracting flies, which is the last thing visiting wildlife needs. Place in a shallow dish and put out before dusk in a quiet area of the garden, along with a shallow dish of water.

Food for hedgehogs can be left on the floor or in a shallow dish. Relying on their spines for protection hedgehogs are not shy so the dish can be out in the open where you can see and once they have found it they will soon ensure that your diner is part of the evening routine. a) The start of this is a very old post (from June 2017) and some of the information which follows is outdated. Since then there have been various posts which are very much more concise. It is unfortunate that this one has been brought to prominence again – not for the first time, as is evident! Hedgehog owners also need to take into consideration what kinds of foods will best suit their pet hog throughout each stage of his life cycle. So, there may be times when he’s more active and requires more energy, there may be times when he is ill and needs more fat to fight off the illness, climate and season may also come into play as well. It’s important that owners feed their hogs a good variety of tastes, textures and smells because that’s what they would be getting out in the wild. Simply feeding them dry cat kibble won’t give them the nutrients or eating experience they need. This year, we have already had two admissions prior to little Gherkin, with metabolic bone disease (confirmed by a veterinary surgeon), both barely able to walk, and in pain. Both of these, like Gherkin, were fed large amounts of mealworms.

Here at The Pet Express we want you to enjoy every time you shop with us. Occasionally we know you may want to return items, we have tried to make our terms as clear as possible to avoid any nasty surprises. Placing food in hedgehog feeding stations is a great way to help feed wild hedgehogs. These stations can be placed in a safe spot within your garden and have enough space to place two dishes inside. Since these stations have a hinged roof and predator-protected entrance holes, they stop cats or foxes from stealing any of the food!

Much like we have to eat everything in moderation and only indulge in unhealthy foods as treats, hedgehogs should do the same. Hedgehogs need good-quality food with the appropriate calcium balance to avoid this condition. For more information, take a look at: A Guide to Hedgehog Metabolic Bone Disease (MBD) A little more about Hedgehogs in the garden. What can I do to help hedgehogs in my garden? My top 4: Berries – organic blueberries and raspberries in particular are okay for hedgehogs to eat, opt for organic if you can because these will less likely have been sprayed with possibly harmful chemicals Hedgehogs are one of only a handful of mammals that hibernate in the winter but they are only inactive during the coldest months of December to February and can even be found out and about in the heart of winter if weather is unusually warm. Generally they will emerge fully during March foraging keenly to get into breeding condition. In the spring males will patrol large territories looking for females, often travelling over 2km each night. If so many hedgehogs are turning up with problems as a result of eating too many mealworms, etc. perhaps some of them are actually, now, using the food as more than just a supplement (the research was quite old). Whilst I appreciate that resources are limited, it seems to me that it would be a simple matter to amend the list of foods and anything which can easily be done to help hedgehogs should be. My feeling is that if we are trying to help hedgehogs, we should give them the best food for them which we can – regardless of whether it is only supplementary feeding.. If you do feel you want to give the hogs some food, then cat/dog food, cat/kitten biscuits or hedgehog food (from a reputable source) are the best things to offer. They really don’t need us to offer any food other than these.

WildThings Swan & Duck Food

You can help hogs further by making your garden attractive to their invertebrate prey. Allowing areas to become overgrown or adding a pond, log pile or compost heap will provide habitat. Birds and other wildlife that feed on these minibeasts will benefit too. Make a hedgehog highway Despite hedgehogs’ varied diet, there are of course things you shouldn’t feed them. Some things are bad just because they contain too much fat or sugars, but other things are completely no-go foods because they could seriously harm them. That being said, hedgehogs have a lot of flexibility in their diet and are very well adapted to eating whatever is available to them depending on their habitat. So, they’re more than capable of consuming proteins and fats, too.

This will depend on the external factors mentioned earlier such as the climate, age, health etc. of your hog. If we miss you on the first delivery attempt, we will try again the next working day. Alternatively, you can visit DHLand easily re-arrange your delivery to something which suits you better! You can choose from the following options: Hedgehog biscuits are also good for their teeth, do not freeze in winter, or go off and attract flies in summer. On top of their natural diet, hedgehogs also get some of their food from friendly humans that leave food out for them in their yard. They make use of this to fill up whenever they struggle to find enough of their own food in the wild. They don’t tend to rely on humans for food, though, like lots of people tend to believe. Generally, research suggests hedgehogs are better suited to digesting insects than plants. This is probably why they have 36 teeth! 22 of which are sharp molars and premolars, perfect for crunching and chewing their food.

Ingredients

Alternatively, you can place food in shallow dishes to leave out in your garden for hedgehogs. However, you’ll have to watch out for other sneaky visitors who might want the food for themselves. What do hedgehogs drink? As I said previously, when we were feeding the wildies with cat food, yes, the neighbourhood cats were very happy 😉 I didn’t want to have an enclosed feeder, so swapped to feeding the ark wildlife biscuits and hedgehog mix, which the local cats dont touch (and they were pretty miffed!). You have two choices – feed a hedgehog biscuit/mix the cats wont touch such as Arks, OR place the food in a cat proof feeder. You can buy these (riverside woodcraft do a great feeding station) But the gardener/ my neighbour/someone on the telly (insert appropriate term here) says its fine to feed them mealworms (etc)! The only thing the hedgehogs need to drink is water. That is so much easier to access anyway, so why complicate things? The aim of providing supplemental feeding is not to try and replicate their natural diet – YOU CANT. But you CAN provide a nutritionally balanced food to support their natural diet.