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Post by FireAngel on May 4, 2015 23:28:10 GMT -5
From everything I've read, most ferrets do not like the stomache or intestines. I just butchered 4 rabbits and I threw away those things, the smell of them was more than enough for me to not even want to see if my weirdos would be the minority that eats them (and no I didn't puncture them when opening the belly up, can't even imagine the smell then!)
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Post by Celene on May 5, 2015 9:15:48 GMT -5
Oh no! Food poisoning is the worst. I had it once and ended up just making a nest of blankets and pillows on the bathroom floor and spending my night there. Small intestines, also known as "tripe" come in two forms: green and white. White has been cleaned, bleached and processed and has almost no nutritional value. Green is EXTREMELY stinky, and some ferrets will eat it, some won't. There is a thread on it here.
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Post by Deleted on May 6, 2015 13:07:26 GMT -5
D: My poor baby Noodle. We're having our first thunderstorm of the year and and my poor Noodle is so scared. She's hiding under my night stand and shaking and she makes the saddest sounds when it thunders... :'c
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Post by Deleted on May 6, 2015 13:48:40 GMT -5
And Panda on the other hand went on her harness and played in the puddles and the wet grass outside. She is definitely a waterbaby
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Post by Deleted on May 6, 2015 17:09:30 GMT -5
I weighed my woozles today! They've gone from 1.12 pounds (Panda) and 1.2 pounds (Noodle) to 1.7 pounds (Panda) and 1.6 pounds (Noodle) Thats so awesome!
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Post by Celene on May 6, 2015 23:37:35 GMT -5
For a second there I was shocked (by the weight change) but then I remembered they're growing babies!
Your little fuzzies sound like quite the characters! What have they been eating recently?
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Post by Deleted on May 7, 2015 0:32:04 GMT -5
Whole chicken wings, gizzards, beef liver and heart (until I can find somewhere where I can get chicken liver/hearts)
This next week I'm going to introduce pork meat and see how they handle that. And I'm going to go on a hunt for whole prey sellers here and see if I can get them some whole prey.
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Post by Celene on May 7, 2015 9:34:52 GMT -5
Yay! A lot of people around here order whole prey/exotic meats from Hare Today. Being in Canada, I've never used them, but most people seem to give good reviews. I think it's only worth it though it you have enough freezer/storage space to buy in bulk because otherwise the shipping can be expensive. Another good bet would be a local breeder who breeds feeder rodents, or a store that sells food for snakes/reptiles. If you live in a more rural/agricultural area there are bound to be a lot of farmers who raise rabbits and quail for meat - I've found a few local ones on Craigslist and I live in a big city! A final option that I've heard people use is to locate someone who breeds rabbits or rats for show - apparently they cull all the ones that aren't up to snuff, and prefer that the meat doesn't go to waste.
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Post by Deleted on May 7, 2015 9:50:26 GMT -5
Yeah I don't have the freezer space to order in bulk yet so I've got to find someone around here who sells live prey. Or I'll start doing it lol
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Post by Deleted on May 7, 2015 11:10:17 GMT -5
D: My poor baby Noodle. We're having our first thunderstorm of the year and and my poor Noodle is so scared. She's hiding under my night stand and shaking and she makes the saddest sounds when it thunders... :'c Poor Noodle. She needs some reassurance. Have you seen the Thunder shirts for Dogs? www.thundershirt.com/My friends with dogs (who live in Florida, where it rains and thunders every afternoon) swear by them. Of course, this is too big for Noodle, but you could wrap her up in a towel and hold her close to your chest. Give her some soft comforting words and Panda would enjoy being part of this also. Even if Panda is your fearless one, a hug is always welcome.
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Post by Deleted on May 7, 2015 11:13:18 GMT -5
ughhhhhghghghg One of my roommates threw out all of my meat so I have to go buy more xnx They have chicken wings to hold them over though. blehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh xnx You and @zombiegirlxi need to talk. Her room mate left the freezer door open and spoiled all their meat. Maybe you two should fix it so that those two meet and share a room together, lol. (headwall)
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Post by Deleted on May 7, 2015 11:21:26 GMT -5
Panda and Noodle are really doing well. Since they are being so good about eating, you might want to consider moving them onto a balanced diet and see if they are ready for the different proteins. I'm going to give you gfountain s basic intro to read. She is a teacher in her non ferret life and makes things simple to understand. Celene has been offering you great advice also. She's a natural and gifted teacher also: The amount of food your individual ferret eats will depend on gender, age, season of the year, and his general mood. It can differ dramatically sometimes and until you become familiar with his eating habits, you will have some waste. In general (and with ferrets and their food, we ALWAYS speak in generalities), adult males eat 2-4 ounces per day, adult females 1-3 ounces per day. Kits of either gender eat 2-3 times MORE food than an adult. They all eat more when they are in the fall and winter mode, less in the spring and summer mode. In fact, ferrets can lose up to 40% of their body weight in the spring. Other factors can play a role in their eating habits also, such as stress, excitement, temperature, or attitude (“I just don’t feel like eating chicken today, mom”). Being familiar with your ferret’s eating habits at any given time of the year is important in keeping track of their health. This is one of the reasons we always recommend that you keep a food journal to track appetite, poops, activity, and weights. MOST ferrets are self-regulating and will eat only what they need. This is not to say that there are NO obese ferrets, but as a rule, they eat what they need to survive and no more. A good guideline when feeding is to try to make sure there is always a bite or two left over when you feed the next meal.
Ferrets, whether they are fed whole prey, grinds, or frankenprey, or some combination of the three, must have a minimum of 3 DIFFERENT PROTEINS in their diet, preferably including at least one red meat. Examples of different proteins are chicken, turkey, quail, beef, rabbit, pork, venison, lamb, goat, frog, fish, etc. Some common red meats are beef, bison, venison, goat, and lamb.
Taurine is an amino acid necessary for heart, brain, and eye health. Taurine is found in muscles that are used A LOT. This is why heart is a required part of the diet. The heart is constantly working, therefore it is very high in taurine. Heart can be ordered online if you cannot find a local supplier. Other good sources of taurine if you cannot find heart are brain and tongue. Brain is VERY difficult for some of us to find, but cow tongue can sometimes be found in grocery stores in locations with a large Asian or Hispanic population. If for some reason, you absolutely cannot get any of these sources of taurine, you can use a taurine supplement (500 mg per ferret per day). The NOW brand is a good one to use because it has no fillers in it. You can get taurine in capsule form, which you can break open and empty onto a meal, or pure powder form. (500mg of taurine is equivalent to ⅛ teaspoon.)
Eggs are a very healthy addition to a ferret’s diet and help in the prevention of hairballs. Generally speaking, a ferret can have the equivalent of one chicken egg per week. (I say the equivalent of a chicken egg because quail eggs, for example, are very small and it takes 4 or 5 of them to equal one chicken egg.) A whole egg is basically a completely balanced meal, designed to provide complete nutrition and waste removal for a baby bird. Therefore, ferrets can be fed the entire egg, shell and all. Whether you want to serve the egg all at once or spread it out (a little bit several times a week) is up to you. Some ferrents choose to only serve part of the egg. In this case, it MUST be the yolk - do not feed egg whites without the yolk. During shedding season, eggs can be fed 2-3 times per week to help prevent hairballs from forming. One thing to be aware of when feeding eggs is that they can create slimy, stinky poops.
And speaking of poop, poop patrol is going to become a fact of your life. A raw fed ferret’s poop is NOTHING like a kibble poop. Their poops change from meal to meal depending on what they last ate. Here is a link to the ‘poop chart’ for reference. poop chart You will likely become a little (or a lot) obsessed with your fuzzy’s litter box for the next few weeks at least, and very likely you will soon be able to tell what your ferret ate for dinner just by looking in the litter box. (You can brag about this talent to your friends if you want, lol.) In addition to his activity level, a ferret’s output is the best indicator of his health. It is also how we determine if your fuzzy needs more or less bone in his diet. As mentioned earlier, the diet should include 10-15% bone. Sometimes they need a little more bone, sometimes a little less, depending on the poops. If the poops are loose, they need more bone. If the fuzzy is constipated, or poops look dry and hard or chalky, they need less bone. Blood-rich meats (hearts, organs) will cause dark, looser poops; heavy bone meals (like chicken necks) will cause drier, more formed poops that often have tiny bits of partially digested bone in them. Another thing to expect during the first few weeks is STINKY poops! Your ferret is basically on a detox from the nasty things that are in kibble. While his digestive tract gets used to processing the raw, his stools will be stinky and odd looking most days. This will all clear up and you will have smaller, less stinky raw poops before you know it!
FRANKENPREY
The goal with frankenprey is to mimic what a ferret would eat in the wild, with the correct balance of organs, muscle meats, and bones, using foods that you can find at your grocery store. Each part of a prey animal has a unique combination of vitamins and minerals that are essential to the health of your ferret. A long term imbalance in their diet can and will cause serious health issues, so it is critical that you plan your meals in advance to ensure that your little friends get the nutrition they need for a long and happy life.
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 (in the format I will want yours to be, when we get to the menu making part, once your ferret is eating all kinds of yummy stuff).
Sun AM: organ meal (½ liver, ½ other organ) Sun PM: edible bone-in meat
Mon AM: edible bone-in meat (or muscle) 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) Fri PM: edible bone-in meat
Sat AM: muscle meat Sat PM: edible bone-in meat
You will take this basic menu and rearrange it to suit your needs, making sure to include at least 3 different proteins, and adjusting the bone-in meals depending on the poops. It is important to be flexible with your feedings. If you notice runny poops and have hearts planned for that meal, you can give a bone-in meal instead, and save the hearts for the following meal if their poops have firmed up. Don’t worry about not having something defrosted if you have to make a last minute change. Ferrets are perfectly content with ‘meat-sicles’. Some ferrets will require the full 9 meals of bone-in, while others only need 7, and this can vary from week to week depending on different factors. It won’t take long for you to figure out what YOUR ferrets need.
The easiest way to prepare meals is to have your meat separated into serving size portions (once you learn the correct amount for your business) in your freezer. Once you have your menu planned, it’s easy to grab one bag or container per meal. When you serve one meal, you can put the next meal into the refrigerator to thaw. It’s good to keep an extra bag or container of bone-in and muscle meat available in case you need to make a substitution, or your fuzzies beg for a snack.
You've been doing alot of reading, so please excuse me for repeating anything you already know. You're doing wonderful with Panda and Noodle. They are two very lucky little Ferts. :wave2:
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Post by Deleted on May 7, 2015 14:28:45 GMT -5
Poncesmom, you are so wonderful. Thank you so very much for your help. It never hurts to re-read information, so I'm very thankful that you put it in one post for me. You've been so helpful!
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Post by Deleted on May 7, 2015 14:41:28 GMT -5
Aww shucks (shy) We actually have GFountain to thank for that. She is such a gifted teacher and doesn't mind my borrowing her intros. :wave2:
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Post by Deleted on May 7, 2015 14:55:31 GMT -5
But still <3 You brought it to me. My woozles and I appreciate it
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