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Post by Deleted on Nov 22, 2014 19:31:16 GMT -5
Also good news: since my back is turned, I think she feels she has enough privacy to eat with me around. I cut the shoulder of this wing into big chunks and smashed the bone, leaving her slightly larger pieces. I can tell that she scattered a little food, but she seems to be working through her portions pretty well.
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Post by gfountain on Nov 24, 2014 16:21:19 GMT -5
I KNOW I responded to this, but I have no idea where it went! I also have absolutely no recollection of what I said in the missing post, so I'll just say GOOD JOB PIPER! and I'll drive home pondering where I was headed with that post. Hopefully, by the time I get home, I will have remembered!
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Post by Deleted on Nov 25, 2014 18:44:40 GMT -5
Don't worry, it's ok You're having a rough week. While I don't expect you to see this for a while, I figured I'd post this before I forget. Her poop looks *awesome*- I even found a little piece of bone in it! I'll try giving her some liver tomorrow, and we still need to pick up a second protein.
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Post by gfountain on Nov 25, 2014 22:41:24 GMT -5
HAHA.. I have some down time & thought I'd check in here. I never did remember what I said in that missing post but I KNOW I answered it! Hooray for awesome poops!! (Never ever thought I'd be cheering for poop, but whatever!) She's doing great! Just a warning, the liver could cause some serious dramatics, lol.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 27, 2014 21:21:27 GMT -5
Again, totally fine if you don't see this for a few days Hope everything went well with you & yours. I had my boyfriend over my family's thanksgiving, and he was such a trooper. My family has more coconuts than bunches, and he never complains. I'm on here to tell you that she ate half a liver yesterday morning! We woke up late, and she was clearly very hungry. Travis was trying to prepare the shoulder for her as fast as he could, but it was still frozen. I had been thawing the livers in the fridge for a couple days now, so I figured, let's meet Piper's demand with a supply that we have ready. Cutting the liver into dime- and nickel-sized pieces and dropping them into Travis hand, she slurped it right up! We didn't find any particularly nasty poops yet, but then again, I haven't cleaned her cage yet this week
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Post by Deleted on Nov 29, 2014 15:24:04 GMT -5
Recent Weight: 1lb, 9.8oz.
We've been allowing her to stash her wingtips in her hidey hole, and we recently discovered a rather nasty but 3/4s eaten wingtip! Recently, she's been hungry all the time, so we're starting to feed her twice a day again, even when she eats the entire shoulder piece as quickly as Travis can cut it up. Last night we experimented with a middle piece of wing, only cutting it in half lengthwise between the radius and ulna before offering it to baby girl. She stripped some of the meat off of the radius, which is pretty cool, although she does seem to have gnawed the bone much (yet). Her cage and outside her litter boxes has some messy but healthy raw poops, many of them now containing bits of bone.
Also, I wanted you to know that I'm going out to get her second protein today. Is pork ok to feed her pork? If it is, are there any sections of pork that she specifically should not be given?
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Post by gfountain on Nov 29, 2014 15:43:19 GMT -5
Good to hear she's eating some bones. Food intake can really vary from season to season and day to day. My 4 kids will sometimes eat a pound of food in a day and sometimes only 4 or 5 ounces. I haven't figured out a pattern for the new kids yet, so I just try to make sure there's ALWAYS something in the dish. For a while, Casper was eating until the dishes (all 3 of them!) were empty, but just this week I guess he's decided that I'll keep on feeding him every day so he's OK with leaving some for later, lol.
Pork is a good protein; any cut is fine. I always get them neck bones because they're cheap and meaty. However, they count as a muscle meal because they can't EAT the neck bones. They'll chew on them and get the marrow out, but the bones themselves are too hard and they leave those behind. I almost always have a neck bone in the cage though, because Leon likes to gnaw on them.
Remember how she didn't know the chicken was edible and you had to teach her to like it? She'll very likely not recognize the pork as food either. You can try offering her a chunk and you might get lucky, but most likely you'll have to teach her that it's food; it won't be as difficult this time, though. Cut a few pieces a little smaller than what she's eating now and mix them with her chicken. Try to make sure she eats those pieces, even if you have to hand-feed them to her. Then the next meal, you'll add a few more pieces, then a few more and a few more, until she'll eat it without the chicken. Keep an eye on her poops during this time. As she eats more of the boneless pork and less of the bony chicken, they could get loose. If that happens, sprinkle a tiny bit of eggshell on the pork.
I've not been online this week, so I feel like I'm very out-of-the-loop on a lot of things and I don't remember if I've told you to start thinking about your final menu. We need to know what your "goal menu" is so we'll know what step to take next with her. So go back to that awesome store and figure out what foods you WANT her to eat; then we'll get your menu balanced and start working her new proteins and organs into her diet. Remember, you'll need a minimum of 3 proteins in the muscle meat/bone-in categories, and at least 2 nutritional organs. It's good to have protein variety in the organs also but those do not count toward the 3 protein minimum.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 29, 2014 16:05:22 GMT -5
I will inform this more once I go to the store, but off the top of my head, I was thinking about her menu like this: - I might have rabbit, pork, and chicken as my three proteins. These are all very available to me in many cuts; I can find whole rabbits at H-mart, although they probably won't be fed as often as chicken or pork out of expense. - I also have access to turkey and CGH, although I'm not sure if all that poultry would be different enough from chicken, and I might just occasionally swap one of those out for chicken. - Somewhere on the forum I've read that fish can be fed once a week. I was wondering if you'd be okay with her having some shrimp, salmon, or cod no more than once a week for the sake of variety. Initially, I looked into anchovies and sardines, but it was very difficult to find them packed in water, without salt, and without preservatives, and when I did, I realized that we would never go through them before they went bad. - As far as organs go, I always have liver and I always have heart, both from chicken. Hopefully the whole rabbits are not deboned and gutted. I need to do more shopping around for more non-heart organs, maybe kidneys, although I've heard those are smelly. In short, I'm thinking! Baby girl eats better than many people do, sadly. I had to turn down a wealth of cooked bone and meat from family in the past few days because they didn't understand the danger of cooked bones. If only they had saved the raw guts!
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Post by gfountain on Nov 29, 2014 16:24:36 GMT -5
- I might have rabbit, pork, and chicken as my three proteins. These are all very available to me in many cuts; I can find whole rabbits at H-mart, although they probably won't be fed as often as chicken or pork out of expense. These are all fine. They can eat the bones of the rabbit and the chicken, so those would be both muscle meat and bone-in, depending on what you give her.
- I also have access to turkey and CGH, although I'm not sure if all that poultry would be different enough from chicken, and I might just occasionally swap one of those out for chicken. Turkey is definitely a different protein. CGH is debatable. All a CGH is, basically, is a baby chicken. Because it hasn't had time to grow up and therefore hasn't been exposed to all of the chemicals adult chickens have been, it is sometimes considered a different protein. I personally don't count it as different, but many do. Many ferrets that are allergic to chicken can eat CGH successfully, most likely because the sensitivity is actually to the chemicals, not the chicken itself.
- Somewhere on the forum I've read that fish can be fed once a week. I was wondering if you'd be okay with her having some shrimp, salmon, or cod no more than once a week for the sake of variety. Initially, I looked into anchovies and sardines, but it was very difficult to find them packed in water, without salt, and without preservatives, and when I did, I realized that we would never go through them before they went bad. Fish are fine, as long as they're not processed. Always check the ingredients on any package. I've gotten some supposedly fresh fish that has been infused with saline. Fish also makes smelly poops.
- As far as organs go, I always have liver and I always have heart, both from chicken. Hopefully the whole rabbits are not deboned and gutted. I need to do more shopping around for more non-heart organs, maybe kidneys, although I've heard those are smelly. Heart is NOT an organ! Although 'normal people' (non-ferrents) usually consider the heart an organ, for the purpose of the diet, it is a required muscle meat. It is cardiac muscle, rather than skeletal muscle, but a muscle nonetheless. Liver is easily available; the 'other organ' is always the difficult one. Kidneys are smelly, but in my opinion not any worse than liver. Lungs have a weird texture. I've heard that brains are 'icky'. I can't find them so can't testify to that one way or the other. Stomach and intestines are usually discarded by the ferrets, so I wouldn't waste money or time preparing those. None of the organs are really fun to work with, but they're necessary and we ferrents will do anything for our babies, lol.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 29, 2014 19:21:54 GMT -5
Excellent! The whole rabbits are not nearly as expensive as they are online, selling between $8-12 depending on its weight. Today I just got her a small container (.66lbs) of pork cubed for soup, Sadly, I looked for the neck bones you told me about, and they only had them smoked and flavored (which sounds delicious just not ferrent-approved). Really glad I asked about the turkey/CGH! I had no idea, I'll keep all that in mind. I had to be in-and-out of the supermarket today, but I look forward to checking out their fish next time. I've heard about those notorious poops! Warning heeded. D'oh I can't believe I screwed that up again. I'll commit the others to memory as true organs: liver, kidneys, lungs, brains, but not stomach/intestines.
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Post by gfountain on Nov 29, 2014 21:22:57 GMT -5
Since you're memorizing ... more organs - thymus, pancreas, reproductive organs, spleen. Stomach/intestines ARE organs; ferrets just don't usually eat them. Always ALWAYS ask questions. It's the only way to learn. And I seem to only have 2 modes of operation - OVER-explain and neglect to explain, so PLEASE question me if I'm not clear on something. There is only one local grocery store that carries the neck bones. When I go ferret-shopping, I end up going to 4 stores, because each one is the ONLY one that carries particular items... it's aggravating!
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Post by Deleted on Dec 1, 2014 12:16:36 GMT -5
So, excellent news! Yesterday I was cutting baby girl's shoulder piece into nice big chunks, and a took one or two pieces of pork and cut them into little chunks and slivers. She readily devoured the pork! Now last night I left her a couple pieces, and she didn't get through all of them, but I was still very happy. She's also going to town on those bones. I'm thinking about giving her fewer cut-up shoulders and more wing tips.
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Post by gfountain on Dec 1, 2014 13:57:15 GMT -5
Good news. Somewhere in the first few posts in this thread, toward the end of the information overload, there is a sample menu. You need to use that and plan out a week's menu using the proteins and organs that you've decided on. Go ahead and fill it out with your 'goal foods' and until she's actually eating those, we'll substitute with foods that she already eats. That way we can work towards balance while she's learning to eat new things.
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Post by gfountain on Dec 5, 2014 10:28:35 GMT -5
How's it going? I know you guys are probably gearing up for finals week. Just wanted to wish you and Travis good luck!
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Post by gfountain on Dec 11, 2014 15:46:00 GMT -5
Any news? About Piper or finals, lol?
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