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Post by katt on Jun 16, 2014 1:58:43 GMT -5
Keeping this in my feed
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Post by brittles888 on Jun 17, 2014 7:49:39 GMT -5
1. Ferret's name:Lola 2. Ferret's weight:1 lb 2 oz 3. Ferret has eaten "X" amount on average per meal. About 1-2 ounces of soup 4. Stools on various proteins. small and runny 5. Activity levels: she's been mellow the past little bit...with spurts of hyper when she gets out to play 6. Weekly menu:soup and some meals of just chunks and slivers 1. Ferret's name:Zin 2. Ferret's weight:2lb 2 oz 3. Ferret has eaten "X" amount on average per meal. 1-2 ounces of soup with slivers 4. Stools on various proteins... they have been runny lately 5. Activity levels: very high, but has also seemed a little more mellow at times 6. Weekly menu: chicken soup and some days of just slivers and chunks Okay so still at chunky soup stage. This is generally the biggest hurdle. After this the other hurdles tend to go over easier. Posting more often will be a huge help because I can guide you daily instead of every week or two. If I don't know what's happening I don't know what to tell you to do next. How big are the slivers? How many of them are in the soup? Once I have an idea of that, I can figure out where to go from here. Ok, I have to be better about logging onto here so we can move forward. Would you mind terribly sending me a quick text when you have replied so I know to go back and see what you said? I think that will help me. I thought getting the app on my phone would help but I haven't figured out how to make it push notifications to me that I have a new message and I haven't been getting on my computer at all. So they have still been eating soup and chunks. I've been giving them meals of just soup (but super thick soup, like the thickness of mashed potatoes) and meals of just chunks, and depending on how long it had been since they ate, they will eat the chunks right away. (pieces of meat are about the size of my full fingernail, with some larger and some smaller) A couple days back I put down strips of meat (about the size of a whole pinky) when they were hungry and they actually tried to eat them. Zin took one and ran off with it (I hope he ate it! I haven't smelled anything weird coming from any hidey holes.) and Lola sat there and chewed at the strip and chewed at the strip and eventually ate part of it. Sometimes the meal I put out for them ends up sitting there in their cage for half a day or more (they don't finish or dont want it when I put it in) they always finish it but is it safe for them to be eating raw meat that's been out for that long? I've been worried about that. I actually DID get a pic of one of the poops tonight...I'll get a few more pics and also a picture of them and load it up with my next post. Their poops have still been kind of runny. Do you know where the thread with pictures of what poop looks like on different meats is without having to search long? If you do and could link it to me, it would be helpful. They have both seemed a little bit less energetic, at times, lately. They are sleeping longer and harder, but when they get up and play it's full on. Not sure if that means anything. I noticed Lola has gained and Zin has lost weight. That makes sense as Lola seems to eat more and Zin seems to be more picky when I put the food in. Could you get pics perhaps? Soft is fairly normal on soup, but runny is potentially concerning - how much eggshell are you adding per 10oz of soup? It may just be a matter of adding more calcium.I've been making large batches of soup (a whole blender full at a time) and I just adjusted the egg shell accordingly but perhaps I didn't do the math right on this batch? I remember just generally measuring when I made it but I can't remember the exact amount. Too little egg shell will make their poop runny? Should I add some to their next meal?
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Post by katt on Jun 17, 2014 16:30:52 GMT -5
Yes not enough calcium will make for runny poops. 1/2tsp eggshell per 10oz of soup. You can sprinkle it onto their chunk meals too. Let's start working on introducing the heart and liver as slivers. Make the soup. Cut your meat slivers, but also cut up some tiny liver and heart slivers too and mix them all into the soup - you may need to hand feed a bit. I can definitely text you when I post. I just didn't want to pester or seem like I was nagging you.
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Post by brittles888 on Jun 17, 2014 18:18:11 GMT -5
No, please pester me! I appreciate it. If I know you've answered via text I'll know to go log on and respond. I think it will work better. Ok, I just pulled some heart and liver out of the freezer. I can't remember if I told you, but I actually made "soup" a couple times but didn't blend it it was just chunks and slivers of liver and chicken and heart and eggshell just stirred together with a little oil. And they ate it. So they have had slivers and chunks of liver and heart. It's been a while though. Hopefully they accept it and will eat it right back up. Ok, I'm going to try and add photos right from my phone with this app. Fingers crossed. Poop. Here is several photos of poops from the past 24 hours. Zin is the one whose poop is more yellow and a bit chunky. (His poop was seedy on kibble too-although it got better when Orijen changed their cat formula and took out potato starch). It's not letting me load the photos. It says an internal error occurred and to contact the system administrator. So...pictures soon.
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Post by katt on Jun 18, 2014 18:10:02 GMT -5
How did they do with the new slivers? Any luck with pics?
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Post by katt on Jun 25, 2014 23:54:56 GMT -5
Keeping in my feed
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Post by katt on Jun 27, 2014 18:26:48 GMT -5
Okay since they are now eating heart and liver (Yaaaay!) we can start forming an early menu. We will have to work with them on the beef heart and liver. You can start with teeensy slivers of the beef mixed in with the heart. Menu time. Every week they should get one full meal of heart, one full meal of liver, and one meal that is half liver, half heart. The rest of the meals we will be working on their muscle and bone meals. Since they are accepting chicken and pork keep rotating between both, but we will want to get some other meats in too. We also need to work on continuing to increase the chunk size. Continue mixing the eggshell into their meals every day for now, but as soon as they are nomming bigger sized chunks we will start to tackle bones! (dance)
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Post by brittles888 on Jun 29, 2014 2:29:52 GMT -5
Hey! So, I should be mixing egg shell into every meal? Even if it's heart and muscle? (I haven't been doing that at all.) Only in the soup.
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Post by brittles888 on Jun 29, 2014 2:39:54 GMT -5
1. Ferret's name:Lola 2. Ferret's weight:1 lb 1oz 3. Ferret has eaten "X" amount on average per meal. About 1-2 ounces of soup or 1-2 oz of muscle heart or liver 4. Stools on various proteins. small 5. Activity levels: mellow lot of sleep like normal for her 6. Weekly menu:soup and meals of just whole chicken heart or whole chicken liver or ground turkey
1. Ferret's name:Zin 2. Ferret's weight:2lb 1.5 oz 3. Ferret has eaten "X" amount on average per meal. 1-2 ounces of soup or 1-2 oz if liver muscle or heart 4. Stools: small sometimes runny 5. Activity levels: very hyper and wild 6: weekly menu: same as Lola
So they wouldn't eat the ground beef heart I had or beef liver but they have been eating whole chicken hearts and whole chicken livers and ground turkey this week. Also some meals of soup.
I'll try again to upload those pics I took last week. Their poop seems less runny and weird though. I was careful to add the right amount of egg shell to this batch of soup but I haven't been putting it on any meals of chunks. Should I be?
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Post by katt on Jul 2, 2014 0:26:14 GMT -5
Discussed adding more calcium. They are eating chicken liver and heart, need to work on beef. Testing chicken to see if Zin is sensitive. Poops good on pork.
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Post by katt on Jul 2, 2014 0:28:20 GMT -5
How are they doing? Did you test the chicken again with Zin and how did it go? Are they still taking okay with the chicken heart and liver? If so, every week start to slowly replace a teensy bit of the chicken heart/liver with beef heart/liver until they will accept the beef on its own. Once I know how chicken went we'll tackle the next steps in the muscle meat and bone department.
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Post by brittles888 on Jul 2, 2014 7:04:32 GMT -5
Hey! I didn't add the chicken back yet. They have only eaten pork muscle for the past 3 days now. I have about one more serving of it. There was some runny poop again in the litter box today, but I don't think I sprinkled enough egg shell on their last meal. I'm now trying to be really careful and actually weigh what I'm adding the egg shell too to make certain it's exact. I'll see how the poops are in the AM. I've been having problems with Zin taking all the food up to the top level of the cage and hiding it inside the ferret ball pit up there. I recovered a large handful of pork chunks out of there today. i need to get a bin like you texted me, but in the mean time I took a cardboard box and turned it upside down and cut two ferret sized holes in it and stuck it over top of the area they eat. He actually went in there and ate a couple chunks, then tried to carry the rest of the chunks to the ball pit, but I blocked his passage and kept putting him back in the eating cave and he eventually stopped trying to move it and kept eating it. There were fly eggs all over the meat chunks up in the ball pit though...it's SO GROSS. I'm trying to keep a really good eye on that since it's happened two times now. Maybe I need some fly strips...ha. I'm going away this weekend for three days and leaving the ferrets with a ferret sitter. I was just going to have her feed them soup, since it's easy to portion and I know they will eat it. We leave Friday. But until then, what should I do next? Add some chicken heart and liver? Or a little of the beef? Or should I just give them a meal of just chicken muscle to see if it causes the runs? (And make sure to be careful with the egg shell ratio?) Thank you!
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Post by katt on Jul 2, 2014 15:31:08 GMT -5
Is the soup pork soup? Before you leave you could try chicken, but if you do you should do it sooner rather than later so you have time to get poops back under control if he does react. It is very important to measure the calcium to make sure they get the right amount. Their bodies need calcium.
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Post by katt on Jul 3, 2014 3:30:20 GMT -5
Going to be away from the Internet until Sunday as we're at the cabin and have company from out of town visiting. You have my cell though so feel free to text!
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Post by katt on Jul 7, 2014 19:08:43 GMT -5
Checking in - how are the fuzzards?
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