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Post by gfountain on Feb 28, 2014 9:08:03 GMT -5
It's so strange. He absolutely LOVES his soup in the evenings.. when it's soupy time, he follows me around the house with a pitiful little face, begging for me to go fix his soup. Then he dives right in and usually cleans the bowl now. But mornings - no way!
This morning, I didn't even try to feed him. I just let him out to play while we all got ready to leave the house. He was begging for food but I made him wait so I know he's good and hungry. When we left, I put him back in his cage with a bowl of soup and just walked out. I looked back in a couple of minutes & he was sniffing it, so I've got my fingers crossed. He ate almost 2 oz last night and I'll go check on him at noon, so I don't think he'll starve even if the stubborn brat refuses to eat the soup.
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Post by miamiferret2 on Mar 1, 2014 21:48:11 GMT -5
i feed my ferret every 12 hours and he is a pig so he eats everything at once pretty much. so how did he do with that after you left yesterday morning? did he eat what you left for him in his cage? 2 ounces is a pretty good dinner i'd say! sometimes my ferret goes like 10 hours without eating. not that he does not have any food, it is just that he is sometimes good for that long without eating. usually during summer he does it most often.
it is weird that he won't eat in the mornings. are you still leaving the kibble in with him overnight?
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Post by miamiferret2 on Mar 1, 2014 21:50:58 GMT -5
what if you drizzle some ferretone or linatone on it (or whatever oil he likes)?
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Post by gfountain on Mar 2, 2014 11:27:10 GMT -5
SUCCESS!!! We have been kibble-free since Thursday afternoon!!
When I went home to check on him at noon on Friday, he hadn't touched the raw. I freshened it up with warm water & put it back in, grabbed some stuff I needed to take back to work, and left. I sneaked back in to check on him again and he was eating. It was gone when I got home from work.
Yesterday he ate his morning meal with only a tiny bit of fussing, and this morning he was waiting at the door for it. I tried the wing again yesterday - still no luck there.
So now I just work on increasing the chunk size, right? He eats the chunks with no problem as long as they're in soup. He doesn't want them by themselves. What about other meats? When do I introduce those?
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Post by gfountain on Mar 2, 2014 11:31:25 GMT -5
And what about the soup recipe.. still the same one? (8 oz thigh meat, 1 oz each liver & heart, egg shell powder) I'm out of hearts & still having trouble finding them, so I'll add the taurine powder when I make his soup tomorrow.
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Post by miamiferret2 on Mar 3, 2014 20:05:09 GMT -5
Yes!!! Finally! Yes just keep increasing slivers. Should get to about 1 inch chunks then we move to bone. Recipe is fine. When you add bigger chunkd just sprinkle a pinch more of the bone meal or eggsgell powder.
So happy!
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Post by gfountain on Mar 4, 2014 10:51:02 GMT -5
ME TOO!!! He usually licks all the soup off first and leaves the chunks for later. I've tried putting just a tiny bit of soup on today.. we'll see how that goes. His poops are a little funky, not sure if they're normal or not. Daytime poops are fine, soft but not runny, sort of reddish brown, almost the color of liver which is weird because there's not THAT much liver in the soup. Nighttime poops are the ones I'm concerned about. There's usually one of those reddish brown ones in the box in the mornings, and one that's almost clear and jelly-like. The first time I saw one, it was pretty runny looking, but the last couple have been firmer & a little better formed. I don't know if it's something I need to be worried about or not And his pee - I think he's peeing by the cupful!!
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Post by miamiferret2 on Mar 4, 2014 19:31:16 GMT -5
well, ferrets that eat a raw diet seem to urinate more. that is bc they are getting more water in their diet (what they are SUPPOSED to be getting as far as hydration). I am stumped as to why his poops look different after dinner meals than breakfast. are you using the same batch for dinner as you do in the am?
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Post by gfountain on Mar 5, 2014 11:37:11 GMT -5
Yep, same soup, same amount of chunks. I wondered if maybe he just wasn't getting ENOUGH for during the night, making his morning poops weird. I left more in his cage last night than I have been & this morning it was all gone, and poops were better. (Do poops get weird if the belly's empty? I would think there just wouldn't be any poop.) Anyway, it was better this morning & he dove into his breakfast with gusto. He's not super happy with the chunks getting bigger (they're about the size of dice), but he's managing to get them down.
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Post by miamiferret2 on Mar 5, 2014 21:03:20 GMT -5
Yes i think that has to be it. Yes poops look more mucousy on an emptier stomach in my experience. How many ounces of raw is he eating at night? My ferret will put out a few good sized poops then one or two scats and sometimes those are mucousy.
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Post by miamiferret2 on Mar 5, 2014 21:03:54 GMT -5
Is he chewing on the chunks with his back teeth?
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Post by gfountain on Mar 6, 2014 10:33:34 GMT -5
He's been eating close to 2 oz through the night. Last night I gave him just over 2 oz and he had quite a bit left this morning. I think he's readjusting his eating schedule. I always feed him at 7:00 morning & evening and he used to eat when I fed him, but now he's just picking at it and eating later. Since I'm not home during the day, I'm not sure when he's actually eating, but I think it must be in the early afternoon because he's not hungry anymore when 7:00 pm rolls around. So I'm not sure what time he eats at night either - it's after 10:30 or so when I go to bed.
He mostly is still chewing with his front teeth. The few times this week I've gotten to watch him eat, I've noticed that he sort of plays with the chunks in his mouth, moving them around from front to back, I guess experimenting with where to chew. He started to chew with his back teeth last night, but then got choked and started gagging so he went back to chewing with the front.
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Post by miamiferret2 on Mar 7, 2014 10:14:27 GMT -5
That is normal. They eat when they are hungry, they stay satisfied longer (can go without food MUCH longer than kibble fed ferrets). They also eat less than kibble fed ferrets because they get what they need with less. Kibble is full of fillers. This is why you see less poop and smaller poops with raw diet. Ferrets rip the meat with front teeth. But the way they strengthen jaws and chew meat small enough to swallow is by chewing on the meat rapidly with their back teeth. These are same teeth they use to crunch up small bones. So once you see him chewing on the meat slivers & chunks with back teeth like he is supposed to then we can move to bone.
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Post by gfountain on Mar 7, 2014 10:53:06 GMT -5
I watched him eat last night & he's doing better with the back teeth. Last night's dinner was 2 oz & there was about 1/2 oz left this morning. He's still leaving the largest chunks in the dish. I don't know if he left them because he was full or because they were bigger so I cut them a tiny bit smaller for today.
My scales broke and I haven't been able to replace them yet, so I can't get his weight, but he's feeling heavier.
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Post by gfountain on Mar 7, 2014 18:05:19 GMT -5
I just read on another thread that tongue can replace heart as a source of taurine. Is that correct? And if so, is it a 1:1 swap - 2 oz heart = 2 oz tongue? I'm going to have to drive 2 hours to get chicken hearts, but tongue is readily available, so if I can use that instead, I will. It's a huge thing, and expensive (and gross), but it will keep a long time in the freezer.
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