Like many people, I used to feed dried mealworms to my visiting garden hedgehogs. I used to feed them in moderation but I had no idea quite how bad they were for the health of my spiky friends.

I knew that mealworms were to hedgehogs what sweets are to children. If given the choice, they would live on nothing but this junk food. They are highly addictive and hedgehogs will soon choose to consume nothing else.

What I didn’t know though was that mealworms, and also foods like peanuts and sunflower hearts, actively strip bones of calcium. This is the likely cause of increasing numbers of hedgehogs coming into hedgehog rescues with metabolic bone disease, including Benjamin who was cared for here last year.

Feed hedgehogs any brand of cat or kitten biscuit

Please read the article to find out the full reasons why you shouldn’t feed these foods and to find out what foods are definitely suitable for hedgehogs. There is also an excellent video here with more information about metabolic bone disease. A good quality kitten or cat biscuit, water and some meaty cat or dog food is all you need to keep your prickly visitors healthy.

Cat or kitten biscuits are great for wild hedgehogs

There are lots of myths surrounding feeding cat and dog food. They can eat any flavour, including fish and gravy. In my experience they just tend to prefer the chicken or beef flavours but there is absolutely no reason why you can’t feed them other flavours and gravy varieties. If you want to read more about these myths, here is a great article by a leading wildlife hospital..

Water is the most important thing to provide but supplementary food also helps

You can also help by making your garden insect friendly to ensure there are plenty of beetles and caterpillars – their favourite natural foods. There is plenty of calcium in the exoskeletons of beetles.

I run a hedgehog rescue in York, England. You can find out more about me and my hedgehog hospital here. Like all wildlife rescues, my work is entirely self-funded and you can find out how to support my work here.

I also make handmade silver jewellery inspired by nature and wildlife to raise vital funds for my hospital. You can visit my online jewellery shop here.

Silver wildlife jewellery