Menu planning..?

[Deleted]

Hey all!

We're getting near the end of his bag of kibble, so I'd like to get him switched to raw before that runs out! He LOVES his chicken wings, that's really the only stuff we've tried. I don't understand what other meats to buy, I don't want to buy the wrong stuff. I look at the meat section every time I'm at the grocery store and just stare at all the names of things....

So now I need to figure out a menu, and other meats to buy. Like the names of things. When I walk up there at the grocery store, which names of things should I be looking for? That's what throws me the most. Also I'd like to be as cheap as possible, so the cheaper meats (whichever they may be) would be preferable! I think I've spent a lot in chicken wings over the past few weeks! Necks are cheaper, could he have those instead? I also don't quite understand how to decide which days he gets what, and how much of each thing he needs... How do I determine how many oz of something he needs to get??

Another question, can they eat deer meat? Several of my co-workers husbands are deer hunting a lot lately and we figured there'd be a LOT of meat and excess stuff they won't be using... Could that possibly become ferret food? Maybe like some of the deer organs?? It would be tossed otherwise, so free meat for Fez?!

[Deleted]

Pretty much any meat, deer is great and if it's free or cheap it's even better, so is turkey, pork, beef, lamb (lamb is $$$), goat, rabbit, and a lot more. Look for Cornish Game Hens, they're good and have small bones. And also Quail, quail is great for starters. He can have necks, I think they may be harder to chew though but you can certainly try.

It doesn't matter what style it's in really, pork can do pork loin, pork chops, etc etc, remember, fat = energy for ferrets so the more fattening the better. I'm afraid I'm not much help with math and menus so I will leave that to the more experienced raw feeders, seeing as how mine are still on soup. But just about every meat should be fine, you can even try shrimp (beware it makes em smelly).

[gfountain]

Basically meat is meat.. if it comes from an animal, a ferret can eat it.  Venison is a great red meat, especially if it's free.    I'm going to copy/paste some information here that may be helpful, along with a basic sample menu. 

"When feeding frankenprey, there are 4 main PARTS of an animal that we need to feed to meet the diet requirements: muscle meat, heart, organs,and edible bones. Remember that at least 3 proteins are required for complete nutrition. Those 3 proteins should be in the meaty part of the diet, not in the organs. However, you should also have a good variety of sources for organs, not all chicken organs, or all beef organs.

  1) Muscle meat is fairly self-explanatory. It is any kind of meat that is NOT an organ, including hearts and gizzards. When discussing muscle meat, however, we are typically referring to skeletal muscle.

  2) While heart IS a muscle meat, it is a cardiac muscle rather than a skeletal muscle, and it is in a category by itself because it is a vital source of taurine in a raw diet.

  3) Nutritional organs are considered to be any part of the body that SECRETES a hormone. Examples are liver, kidney, thymus, pancreas, reproductive organs, lungs, brains. Liver is the easiest organ to find and should make up at least half of the organ requirement. Other organs can be very difficult to find except directly from a butcher, cultural markets, or online sources. Neither hearts nor gizzards are organs. This is a very common misconception, so be aware of it when shopping for organs. Many meat department personnel and butchers commonly call hearts and gizzards organs, but they are NOT. They are muscle meats, AND heart is a separate requirement in a ferret’s diet (see above).

  4) Edible bone is any bone small enough for a ferret to eat. Generally, these are non-weight bearing bones of poultry or small animals. Because we do not feed a bare bone, but rather one with plenty of meat attached, we sort of combine this category with muscle meat and call it “edible bone-in meat”. When I (or others) refer to “bone-in”, this is what we are talking about. If we refer to “muscle meat”, we mean meat that has no bone included (chicken breast, beef roast, etc.) Examples of edible bone-in meats are poultry wings, necks, backs, ribs, sometimes thighs, whole quail, whole Cornish game hen, rabbit, mouse, guinea pig. Sometimes you can find smallish bones from a larger animal that are small enough for a ferret to eat. One example is pork button bones, or pork riblets. Some of those bones are too dense, but occasionally you can find some small enough. Although the bone requirement is only 10-15% of the total diet (remember that we use the poops to determine the bone content), because the bone is attached to muscle meat, edible bone-in meat makes up the majority of a ferret’s diet. It is critical that your fuzzy learn to eat and enjoy bones, for healthy teeth as well as to meet the calcium requirements.

Now, moving on to the basic frankenprey menu:
Raw fed ferrets are generally fed twice a day, 12 hours apart, making a total of 14 meals per week. The basic weekly menu should include:

  1 ½ meals of heart (~10% of the total diet)
  1 ½ meals of organ, at least half of which must be liver (~5% liver, 5% other organ)
  7-9 meals of edible bone-in meat (~50-60%)
  2-4 meals of muscle meat with no bone (~15-30%)

When building your menu, you want to consider the effect a particular meal will have on the poops. For example, remember that blood rich meals (liver, other organs, hearts) cause looser poops, so to combat that issue, you want to feed at least one bone-in meal between them. It is best to spread organ/heart meals out as much as possible throughout the week.

This is easier than it sounds. Below is a sample menu.  You can use this as a 'fill in the blank' menu.

  Sun AM: organ meal (½ liver, ½ other organ)
  Sun PM: edible bone-in meat

  Mon AM: edible bone-in meat (or muscle, depending on poops)
  Mon PM: edible bone-in meat

  Tues AM: heart
  Tues PM: edible bone-in meat

  Wed AM: muscle meat
  Wed PM: edible bone-in meat

  Thur AM: heart and organ (½ liver, ½ other organ)
  Thur PM: edible bone-in meat

  Fri AM: edible bone-in meat (or muscle, depending on poops)
  Fri PM: edible bone-in meat

  Sat AM: muscle meat
  Sat PM: edible bone-in meat

[gfountain]

As far as how many ounces of something he needs, that depends on how much he eats per meal. He's still young, so will likely eat A LOT. Once he's settled into a regular eating pattern, you can determine how much he eats per meal and have very little waste. And if he's already eating chicken wings, it should be super easy to get him fully switched.

[Deleted]

Very helpful! Lots to start working on from all that information now!

It's got me thinking though, for the chicken wings being a bone-in meal thing, should he be actually finishing ALL the bones from the wing? Because he leaves me one bigger bone, and a couple of little tiny bones (that looks like he's eaten some of possibly). Are they supposed to be left over, or should he be eating all that as well? My dog would enter the next morning and try to lick the left over bones through the cage, and then the other day Fez had thrown the big bone OUT of the cage onto the floor.. Not sure if he was tossing it out FOR my dog or what, but it was interesting!

[gfountain]

My 2 experienced bone-crunchers don't even eat all of the bones in a chicken wing. I really don't even serve wings anymore unless I'm fixing them for the hoomans. The only part the fuzz really like is the tip section, so if I'm fixing wings for us I'll cut off that section and give it to them.

As far as Fez feeding the dog... entirely possible! Right after I got Slinkee (before I decided to go raw) I was switching him from the Marshall's food and had 3 kinds of kibble mixed together in his dish. He started picking out the Marshall's, carrying it to the edge of his cage and dropping it out to the dog waiting below. He ONLY did this when the dog was in the room; otherwise he just put it in a pile beside his dish. He obviously didn't want the Marshall's, lol.  But now.. he's not about to share his meatz with the dumb dog!

[Deleted]

Haha! I think he must have been trying to share! Cause usually he'll pile all the bones either back in his food dish or right by the food dish as well (I LOVE that he's somewhat clean about the eating. If I pass him the meat through the cage he'll take it straight to his food dish ). Silly sharing pets, my dog can't have a chicken wing, much too small! But good attempts with the offering, silly babies. For the most part they seem to really get along well.

[gfountain]

Actually, your dog can have a chicken wing as long as it's raw. My dogs always get the leftovers, including chicken bones. And my Slinkee used to be a very neat eater also, at least until Minnie arrived. He always wanted his food ON HIS PLATE, and if anything fell off, he'd put it back where it belonged. But then Minnie arrived... and he had to take his share and run, lol.

[Deleted]

I'm surprised you have many left overs for the dog haha. Why is it that they want it ON their plate? I think it's awesome, but so interesting.

Speaking of. Last night I gave him pork for the first time, I thought that I'd have to get him to taste it and try it first like with the chicken wing, so I had him in my arms, the chunk of meat in my other hand, and was trying to walk him back to his cage with the meat and he saw the chunk of it and just threw his face into it, didn't even think twice!

The only issue was we were still walking, and he seemed to get angry that I was still trying to hold it (so it wouldn't fall on the ground), he made an odd noise at me. Then finally we got to his cage and I put him in, then he got annoyed again because he had flipped his bowl up on it's side and he had no where to put his meat! So I stuck my hand in to flip the bowl, which made him angry again when I put my hand in past him. But then he was happy once the bowl was flipped and he could put it down to eat.....

So.. Is food aggression a thing in ferrets? What can I do to help this? So he doesn't get so worked up about it all? I'm sure he was just very hungry and excited for the meat, but still!

[gfountain]

LOL, the dog doesn't get much. She would be happy to get a lot more!

Fez is still a baby, right? Try him with lots of new stuff. Babies are just tummies with teeth and they'll eat anything you give them. It sounds like he was hissing at you because you wouldn't give him his meatz! And when you reached in to flip the bowl, he was afraid you were going to take it away again. Give him all he'll eat. Try to keep food available 24/7... that's a hungry baby!

[Deleted]

He's 16-17 weeks or so. How much should I be feeding him? I guess that's the hardest part, I can't leave raw meat sitting in his cage 24/7, so how do I know how much to be giving him anyways? He's going to eat anything I give him, should I just keep giving him more and more meat until he starts to leave some?

[Deleted]

Yes, give kits all the meat they want, they're growing and need the nutrients, hence our nickname for them, "Tummies with teeth"

[gfountain]

Actually you CAN leave meat in the cage 24/7.  A ferret’s digestive tract is very short and bacteria doesn’t have enough time to set up camp in there. It doesn't go bad as quickly as you would think either. The ambient temperature of the room does make a difference as to how long it stays safe but the average 'safe times' are:
  Soups - 6-8 hours
  Grinds - 8-12 hours
  Chunks - 10-24 hours depending on the size (larger chunks last longer)
  Bone-in meats - 12-24 hours, again depending on the size
  Whole prey - up to 48 hours
With soups and grinds, in general, trust your nose - if it smells off, it likely is and should be tossed. You will find that the bigger chunks of meat typically go through a few stages. During the ‘safe’ hours it will dry up and the surface may feel tough or leathery; it is still safe to eat at this point. Then it goes through a stinky, greasy phase during which most ferrets will not touch it. This is usually when it gets tossed because it smells awful, but occasionally a piece or two will get stashed well enough and missed. These pieces continue to dry out and become fairly odorless, making what we call ‘ferret jerky’. Most ferrets can’t resist this and will eat really nasty looking stuff with relish. If they’re eating it, it’s either not too far gone, or it has been successfully stashed and jerkified.

For reference, at 16 weeks, my teeny tiny 15 oz ounce girl was eating 12-15 ounces of meat a day.  I would leave 6-8 ounces in her cage when I left for work and another 6-8 ounces before I went to bed.  (Actually I left that amount for her plus 2 ounces for my boy.)  If at any point I looked in the cage and saw that the dish was empty, I gave her more.  Very rarely was there any waste until she finally started slowing down at 5-6 months.  So in answer to your question above.. YES, just keep giving him more and more until he starts to leave some, lol.

[Deleted]

Wow, 12-15oz a day of meat! My boy must be starving haha. I weighed his meal this morning and it was only like 3 or 4oz!

[gfountain]

I know... that's A LOT! Not all kits eat like she did, I'm sure, but yeah, Fez might be hungry if he's cleaning his dish every time you feed him.