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Post by Deleted on Aug 4, 2013 20:08:20 GMT -5
When y'all say heart and Liver. Is it any heart and Liver...beef, calf, chicken. Turkey, etc. Or do they need to be chicken? I've seen little bowls of chicken internals stuff at the store, i will have to check and see what is in that bowel exactly. The stores here sell fresh beef n calf liver. And frozen beef liver. I'm assuming the beef would be better since its from an adult animal versus the calf being young n less nutrious. Is there a performance for the fresh or frozen?
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Post by Sherry on Aug 4, 2013 20:32:31 GMT -5
Any heart and any liver are fine Susie Frozen or fresh, doesn't matter.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 4, 2013 21:03:49 GMT -5
Thank u. Beef versus calf. Although the stores carry both, they don't always have them at the same time. And beef isn't always cheaper than calf. If the expiration is very soon, the calf is marked waaaay down. Where the menu is concerned, can they have their organs the same time as other stuff? Or should it be organ only for that meal? Assuming I'm not feeding whole. Ah And that now has raised another question...can u feed frankenprey one day n whole prey another and if so, how do u count the organs?
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Post by Sherry on Aug 5, 2013 0:19:17 GMT -5
As long as they are getting approx 2oz each liver/other organ a week it's all good As for supplementing with whole prey(or even commercial raw), you only have to worry about balancing the other seven meals.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 5, 2013 2:31:37 GMT -5
So I wouldnt count whole mice or rats heart, liver, etc toward those 2oz? Can those be used as a meal sometimes or only as a treat? Mine don't get treats. A treat to them is a new place to check out on their walk, or a car ride that involves a view of a river. Or getting to Chase the cat. Or a new crocheted mouse. They have had mice, ones i bought cause i thought they'd like something different for dinner, and, In our old house, id hear them crunching bones in the middle of the night, field mice would sometimes make their way inside, and quickly become dessert. That stopped after a few months...i guess the mice learned that those that went in never came out. That worried me many times. I feared they'd catch some dreadful disease from those wild mice, but no amount of mouse traps kept them from going in and i wouldnt use poison incase the mouse still went in n then the ferts would have eaten a poisonous mouse. I worried for nothing tho, as none ever got sick, nor choked, nor got mouse hairballs. They started out on path valley, then i switched to evo until it was recalled. Went back to path valley until the wysong arrived, and now I'm working on convincing 2 that wysong is better than evo. The scruff n stuff i found earlier did convince the 1 to try a bite n the other to eat a few bites from his bowl, so thank u all for that. The other 3 had no problems...they just like food. Theyve never had store bought ferret or any other "treats", No Human food either. Which is why I'm trying to figure out now if mice are a meal or a treat.
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Post by Sherry on Aug 5, 2013 9:04:46 GMT -5
You'd only count the whole prey toward the total if the whole prey is making up about 1/2 the weekly meals. And heart is a muscle meat for the purpose of raw feeding, not organ
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Post by Deleted on Aug 6, 2013 16:04:46 GMT -5
I checked out the bowls. 20oz of chicken liver $1.69. They have packages of varying sizes of chicken gizzards n hearts...mostly gizzards. See through for the most part. They have between 3 and 4 hearts and a big pile of gizzards. I'm having a brain malfunction on the price per pound. I know the top packages was $4.59...i think it was 2.5 lb. Gotta recheck. I should have wrote it down. Those prices seem reasonable? Our should I look some more places? Hearts go by weight, but can someone give me an idea of how many hearts for 5 ferrets a week? I don't think that little package with 3 or 4 would be enough and am thinking I'm going to have to find them in a larger package of just hearts.
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Post by Sherry on Aug 6, 2013 18:03:11 GMT -5
Since heart is fed as a muscle meat it's really going to vary. Average female will eat about 1/2 an ounce to 1 1/2 oz for a meal. Average male is going to eat 1-3oz per meal. More active, younger ferrets may eat at the top end of that, or more. Less active older, more sick ferrets toward the bottom end. And yes, with heart you need to feed at least one full meal of hearts a week. Check butcher shops, ethnic markets etc. I can usually find beef heart in the freezer section of our local grocery store. Talk to the meat manager in your grocery store. Sometimes they can order heart in by the case for you. I buy in bulk wherever possible, thaw, section, and refreeze.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 6, 2013 19:31:04 GMT -5
So how much does an average heart weigh? I re checked the price on the hearts gizzards pack...its 1.59/lb. Beef liver is 4.59/lb
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Post by Sherry on Aug 7, 2013 8:22:33 GMT -5
What kind of heart? Chicken hearts are tiny thing the size of my thumbnail while need hearts would be larger than my head
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Post by Deleted on Aug 7, 2013 10:25:46 GMT -5
Chicken hearts
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Post by Deleted on Aug 7, 2013 13:02:38 GMT -5
It's kinda like asking... how long is a piece of string? It'd depend on the string. But on average, if my sources aren't wildly inaccurate, 6 grams (approx. 1/4oz) each at slaughtering maturity.
As far as the math goes, your chicken liver is $1.35/lb. The top packages at $4.59/2.5lbs works out to be around $1.84/lb. As long as that figure never hits above $2/lb, it's not costing you too much to feed raw, but I'd think you could get cheaper - ask your butcher about bulk prices. Go ahead and ask about 50lb packages, 20lb packages, etc.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 7, 2013 13:04:02 GMT -5
I'm almost certain that we've had a FB thread about how much ferrets eat. Average hob is around 2oz/day during summer and 4oz/day during winter, which could swing around 50% in either direction depending on the ferret. Jills about half that.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 7, 2013 14:07:10 GMT -5
Sorry about all my questions. I was asking how much an average heart weighs to try n figure out if the packages containing the 3 or 4 hearts would be enough for a week. If I figure 4oz each ferret per week that would be 20oz. So if hearts weigh about 1/2oz, then I will need to find them more. Thank u all for your responses.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 7, 2013 14:30:40 GMT -5
Oh, that's why you asked. I think you only need a 2oz/ferret per week, so two packages for each ferret should do if they're 1/4oz each. Don't worry - taurine exists in every well worked muscle, we're just going for particularly rich taurine sources because we know what happens if they get too little (they'd get heart and sight problems like that woman who fed dog food and milk).
If you want, you could always use fresh chicken/duck legs for an additional booster. Don't forget that taurine is water soluble, meaning that if you get a pool of liquid after thawing and throw that out - you're literally throwing away the taurine.
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