How much food??

[carmella]

I have had carmella for 6 days now he is 16 months old
the pet store recommended nutrience original adult maintence
yesterday while I was cleaning the cage and giving fresh food and water I counted 15 pellets and when I woke up there was only 12
so he is only eating three at a time is this healthy or normal for a four months old?the other day I put in 19 and there were 16 left? :dunno:
I was just wondering if he should be eating more.

[HedgePigLove]

Hello Carmella's mom :)

Sorry that your post was overlooked - please don't think we were ignoring you.

I'm not familiar with the Nutrience Original Adult Maintenance brand of food - I assume that it's a brand of dry cat food? Hopefully someone else with a direct knowledge of the food can better help with this topic. Without knowing the size of the individual kibbles, it's hard for me to judge just how much he's eating. However, even if the kibbles are really large, I think that just three a night is a little on the low-end for consumption. Are you supplementing the Nutrience with other foods, such as insects or fruits/veggies/treats? Those would affect how much of his base food he's eating.

I'm having a bit of trouble understanding your post - is Carmella 16-months old or did you mean to say that he's 16-weeks old (which would make him 4-months old, as you wrote a bit further down in your post)? If he's just 4-months old, then he's still growing and I think he'd be eating quite a bit more than just a few pieces of kibble each night. How much does Carmella weigh? How do his feces look?

Sometimes when hedgies go through stressful events (such as moving to a new home) it can take them a few days to get used to their new surroundings and they don't eat as much during this time. But since you've had him for almost a week (at the time of your post), I'd assume he's well-settled into his new home and is feeling safe and secure. Is he active at night? Does he wheel a lot? More information might help us better answer your questions.

Best of luck to you and Carmella - Laura

[AlisaD]

LOL, I think mine is eating too much. I fill his bowl with about 1/2 c. of kibble and he is eating almost every bite. There might be 3 pieces left. He's only 9 weeks old. What a little hog. He eats all this during the night. On the usual day he has 2 of his chicken flavored wisker lickins' treats (which he LOVES) which are:
Crude Protein (Min).....23.0%
Crude Fat (Min)...........8.5%
Crude Fiber (Max)........1.0%
Moisture (Max)..........34.0%

Then he'll have 3-4 small mealies every other day.

I don't think this is too much, he eats all of it, but he also runs like crazy ALL night long on his wheel. You can tell by the flying poopies and litter I have to clean up in his very messy cage EVERY morning. :rofl:

[Steph]

You should look for a food with a real meat in the first ingredient and that doesn't have a lot of grain, corn, wheat, etc... in it as fillers. You want natural fillers like fruits and vegetables...

Can you post the ingredients of that food? 3 pieces a night is really, really, not enough I don't think but it depends on the ingredients of the food.

Fat should be less than 10% in any food.

Also, make sure he's not having trouble eating them. Some foods are a bit harder than others so he could be having trouble breaking them up to eat... If that's the case you might break them up a bit for him.

Alisa ~ Those are good guidelines in those treats! What are the ingredients in them? I have a hard time getting my hedgies to eat cat treats, the only ones they ever like are some liver flavored ones Sherry always has in Denver! LOL