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Post by Deleted on Jul 10, 2015 9:14:19 GMT -5
I really look at every his move, he is never left alone when he is out of cage beacuse I don`t want to risk that he eats something.
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Post by Celene on Jul 10, 2015 9:44:11 GMT -5
It's very easy for ferrets to over-eat when they are on soups and grinds. Once you switch him to chunks of meat and bone he will eat slower because he has to stop and chew.
Have you tried mixing in pieces of meat per my previous post?
"Okay. What I want you to do is start making the soups thicker and thicker each time you feed. Then mix in pieces of meat that are minced super super tiny, and some which are kind of the shape of a spaghetti noodle, but not as long. Just a couple to start with."
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Post by Deleted on Jul 10, 2015 9:46:06 GMT -5
Am I doing something wrong... this is our feeding schedule
Raw soup : 8 oz of lamb, 1 oz of lamb liver, 2 oz of lamb heart and 1/2 tbs of dry crushed eggshells
- he eats this soup all week in the morning and he eats aprox. 2 oz of this
On monday, tuesday, wednesday and thursday evening I am giving him 2 oz of minced lamb and dry crushed egg - I need to add water to make soup or he doesn`t want to eat
On friday and saturday evening I am giving him 1 oz of lamb and 1 oz of lamb heart + water
On sunday evening I mix him 1 oz of lamb + 0.5 lamb liver + 0.5 lamb kidney + water
I am mixing organs with meat beacuse he doesn`t want to eats other way.
One week he is only on lamb, and the other week I mix lamb with rabit, when I am giving him lamb + rabbit I put 0,8 oz of lamb and 0.2 oz rabbit
He doesn`t eat bones , he doesn`t eat bigger pieces of meat, can I crush in really small pieces rabbits bones and put it in his food?
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Post by Celene on Jul 10, 2015 11:03:13 GMT -5
What you're currently feeding him is balanced, the problem is that no animals (humans included) should be on a liquid diet long-term. Some of the reasons ferrets need to chew meat and bone include: - Dental health (bones are what clean a ferret's teeth)
- Maintaining neck and jaw strength
- Digestive health - chunks of meat and bone moving through the intestines and colon help promote digestion and circulation.
- Eggshells as a calcium supplement are meant as a short-term solution, and are missing a lot of important macronutrients found in bone and marrow.
- A ferret on a liquid diet long-term may become obese since liquids are easy to overeat. (Think of how easy it is to drink an entire milkshake or eat a bowl of ice cream )
- Ferrets need more variety. I know Freddy has some digestive issues so we need to be careful, but our end goal should be to have him eating at least 3-4 different meats each week.
It's fantastic that you've managed to switch Freddy to raw soup so far, now we just need to go the rest of the way and get him eating chunks and bone! It can be a lot of work to train ferrets to chew meat, but I promise it's possible and the end result is worth it!
The simplest way to do this is to start mixing in teeny tiny bits of meat into his soup. He will probably spit some out at the beginning, but he will also (accidentally) chew and swallow some of the bits and realize that they're totally edible. Once he is consistently eating the soup with the tiny bits of meat, you can slowly start increasing the number of bits and their size.
Another way you can try is to cut meat REALLY thinly and try and get it into his mouth to chew. The easiest way to do this is to freeze a piece of lamb and let it thaw for 1-2 minutes. Then you can use a vegetable peeler to slowly shave a very thin piece off. You can cut the shaved piece into narrower strips if you need to. To get him to eat it try dipping one end in oil (or a treat he likes) and slipping it into his mouth while he's licking it, or dangle it just a little above his head so when he licks it it goes into his mouth.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 10, 2015 11:10:22 GMT -5
Yes I now that he need to be from 3-4 different protein, and it`s always in my head that he is not geting enough of proteins.
What about bones? Is it ok to crush them into really small pieces, like a grain of rice and mix it in the food, and are the rabbit bones enough?
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Post by Celene on Jul 11, 2015 14:57:40 GMT -5
You can mix rabbit bones into the soup for now if he will eat it, but ONLY as a temporary measure while you switch Freddy to larger pieces. From the list above I posted of reasons why ferrets need bones, crushing them and adding them to soup only takes care of one of the points. When bone is that small ferrets will swallow without chewing so it does not help clean their teeth or exercise their jaw and neck muscles. When switching to raw, soup is the very beginning stage, not the end stage. Below is a diagram of the steps that usually occur during a transition to raw:
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Post by Deleted on Jul 12, 2015 23:35:13 GMT -5
We are 5 months on first two steps, and we don`t move
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Post by Celene on Jul 12, 2015 23:49:34 GMT -5
Don't worry, the key is patience and persistence! I absolutely guarantee you can get past the second step if you dedicate yourself to it Have you tried putting small bits of meat in the soup since I last mentioned it?
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Post by Deleted on Jul 14, 2015 0:00:44 GMT -5
Yes, he spits it out, but I will puting it until he starts to eat.
We are going to the vet this thursday, since I am going to vacation from 18th of July and I want to be sure that he is ok and to see if he needs medications.
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Post by Celene on Jul 14, 2015 10:54:04 GMT -5
Don't worry if he spits it out. This is a photo from when I first started trying to introduce chunks of meat into their grind. You can see they ate around the chunks completely and any they accidentally picked up they spit out beside the bowl! You just have to be patient and start really small, and eventually he will begin eating them I found it was actually much better once I removed the paper towel. If they got really hungry between meals but were out of soup they would start snacking on the "bits"
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Post by Celene on Jul 14, 2015 12:13:26 GMT -5
If he spits out the pieces even when cut very very small, you can also mix ground lamb into the soup and work up to the small pieces
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Post by Deleted on Jul 18, 2015 2:13:39 GMT -5
Oh my it will be hard work, sometimes I would like to sit and cry I was at the vet, the lipase is going down (( 11.05. was 976 IU/L ,10.06. was 666 IU/L, and now 16.07. was 600 IU/L), glucose after more then 4 hours without food was 6 mmol/l, his weight is going down (the vet told me it could be beacuse of summer and beacuse is hot) it is now 3lb 1.3 oz (1,4kg) We are going to vacation today, I don`t know will I have access to internet, but I will try to post you if I could, to tell you how is he going. If I will not be abble to contact you, I am coming home 3rd of august. Is it coconut oil good for them, to put a small amount in his food?
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Post by Celene on Jul 18, 2015 11:17:02 GMT -5
Yes! If he likes coconut oil you can definitely give him some, especially if it will help him eat his raw.
Did you try putting any little pieces of meat or ground meat into the soup yet?
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Post by Deleted on Aug 3, 2015 9:59:34 GMT -5
He loves coconut oil Let me tell you how we spend our vacation... So,all 16 days I needed to hand fed him...and it was very hot in the apartment and outside so he didn`t eat much...but he eated every 3-4 hours a small pieces...I put small pieces of meat (size of a nail on little finger) in minced meat ... he would spit some of them but some of them he eated but still it is not easy... I realized that I need to fed him more times a day, beacuse if I gave him in one meal 50g (0,11 pounds)of meat or raw soup he throw up, like he can`t digest bigger meal is that possible? When we came home yesterday he was great, he jumped, he dooked...but he still doesn`t want to eat by himself...He now in the middle of the night jumps of his hammock and starts to `dig` floor of the cage...and that means he is hungry...and then I need to fed him and when I do, he goes back to hammock to sleep...it is like a newborn child who needs to be fed every couple of hours
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Post by Celene on Aug 3, 2015 11:57:04 GMT -5
That makes perfect sense - it is very common for ferrets to eat too quickly and throw up, especially with soup because it's so easy to swallow a whole bunch. This isn't as much of an issue once they're eating bone-in meats because it forces them to slow down while they chew. 50g is a lot of food to digest at once. My girls eat about that much each day, which means they get two meals of about 25g each, but they also nibble it throughout the day rather than putting it all back at once. Last week Mocha ate about 29g of organ soup really fast and she threw up after I am really REALLY excited that Freddy is starting to eat chunks of meat! This is a huge step in the right direction.He's gotten a little spoiled and entitled by being hand fed. Sometimes I think ferrets are a lot better at training us than we are at training them He will keep digging as long as it "works" to get you to come feed him.
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