What should i feed my hedgehog?

Here at our rescue we have successfully used Royal Canin dry cat food for several years. Our veterinarians approve of it and the hedgehogs like it. We use six varieties, depending upon the situation. For young hedgehogs and those needing to put on weight we use Babycat 34. The standard diet is a mixture of Kitten 36 and Selective 34/29. For portly hedgehogs needing to remain stable or lose weight we use Indoor 40. A "typical" weight for an adult African hedgehog is 350 to 450 grams (454 grams is one pound), but of the 45 hedgehogs here at the rescue the weights range from 200 grams (for a little fellow with a deformed spine) to 1,000 grams. We recommend obtaining an electronic kitchen scale that weighs in grams (they are not expensive - amazon.com has a wide variety) and weighing your hedgehog daily, entering the weights on a ledger sheet. Changing weight trends are a very good way to get an early warning that the hedgehog may have health problems. Grams are a much more exact measure than fractions of an ounce. For example, if a hedgehog has gone off of her/his food there will be a steady weight drop which may be caused by any number of things, such as an intestinal bacteria overgrowth (requiring antibiotics). Since their lives are sped up about 12 times faster than human lives, the earlier you can be warned about a health problem and get the hedgehog to the veterinarian, the better. Best wishes, Z. G. Standing Bear at The Flash and Thelma Memorial Hedgehog Rescue, Inc., in Divide, Colorado USA