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Post by FireAngel on Jul 12, 2015 10:47:24 GMT -5
Looks great! Dig boxes can be great fun for them and you can use a variety of things in it (rice,sand,plastic eggs, beans, macaroni) to keep them busy.
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Post by lyles on Jul 12, 2015 11:33:01 GMT -5
I bought batteries for my new hanging scale (It works great). I just put Nei in a plastic bag and hook it on the scale and it gives you a digital reading (you can choose from kg, lbs, oz and something I haven't seen before). It was very cheap too, bought it off ebay. At 12.5 weeks Nei is about 18" long from nose to tail and weighs 1.2lbs. I weighed the food and on average I give her 7-8oz a day (and she usually doesn't finish it all).
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Post by FireAngel on Jul 12, 2015 12:01:49 GMT -5
That's a good weight, I'm glad you finally got the scale. It's so re assuring to be able to weigh them and see how they are growing, especially if you are worried about how much they are eating. I'm actually going through the same thing with George right now. I swear he eats practically nothing compared to the other 3 at 11-12 weeks, but he is gaining so I'm trying not to freak.
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Post by lyles on Jul 13, 2015 15:33:27 GMT -5
Today I notice a great deal in her muscle tone. I rough house with her quite a bit since she is a single ferret. When she wrestles my hand I can really feel the muscles in her arms and shoulders. She grabbed a shoelace just now that was hanging from the shelf and started doing alligator rolls while hanging, it was the funniest thing seeing her spin around lol. Her eating and poops are still going along nicely. She is eating her pork today and is able to chew down the pork rib bones after I split them. Now every day is easter for me, because I have to look for the left over bone fragments in the carpet and hidey-holes, don't want any ants or roaches
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Post by FireAngel on Jul 13, 2015 17:11:03 GMT -5
Sounds like she is doing great! Yeah stashing can be tough, if I ever get rich I will have a special ferret proof house built with linoleum floors and wipeable walls that have some awesome designs on them! It's nice to dream lol! did you make a menu for her for yourself yet and if you did can we see it?
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Post by lyles on Jul 13, 2015 17:30:54 GMT -5
Sounds like she is doing great! Yeah stashing can be tough, if I ever get rich I will have a special ferret proof house built with linoleum floors and wipeable walls that have some awesome designs on them! It's nice to dream lol! did you make a menu for her for yourself yet and if you did can we see it? It's the same one on page 4, she eats everything on there now without any encouragement so I'm sticking with that.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 13, 2015 17:45:47 GMT -5
Can you get quail or rabbit or guinea pigs? If you have mice or can get mice now you can also chop them up as a meal for her to start with until she works up to a whole prey. If you needed to for now until you can figure out how/where to get other proteins you could use chicken as your bone in and beef as the just meat meals. Did she eat any of the rib from last night? As Sherry stated there needs to be another organ also, liver is high in vitamin a and that can build up in her system and cause vitamin a toxicity. The organ meals are meant to be 1/2 liver and 1/2 other organ. I personally like to use 2 other organs just for the variety and benefits each organ has. (I use lung, pancreas and an organ mix that I made up when I gutted and skinned and butchered the rabbits I got for them. No that mix does not include liver, I set that aside separately.) Can you tell me how many ounces or grams she is eating a meal? It is very important to know this. Have you weighed her recently or when you first brought her home did you? No, none of those are avail. and I will not feed her live prey. I also can't keep frozen dead animals in the freezer, as I have to share the freezer with others and they won't approve. I keep her free roam in my bedroom and my health is not great, having to handle raw meat on a daily basis is taking a risk enough. I did get some hand sanitizer to help with germs. I went to the store and found that they were selling turkey necks. The butcher also said that chinese pork ribs have soft bones as well so I picked up 5lbs. of that too. It was an arduous task, but I managed to split the 6lbs. of turkey neck down the bone and also the pork ribs. My dedicated freezer space is at it's limit so I could not get anymore than that, plus I'm way over budget trying to get all the right meats for her plan. On the plus side I now have about two months worth. Livers are pretty much the only organ any of these markets sell, If I happen to see any chicken kidneys I'll pick some up, but they were not at the store I was at. She only gets 1.5 servings of liver a week, that should not be enough to cause any toxicity problems. At the moment I do not have a scale, I ordered a hanging one from ebay (to make weighing wiggling weasles easier) but it won't come in until middle of next week. I portion out the food servings loosely about a third of the size of one of those ziplock sandwich bags, or roughly the size of three golf balls. I can tell she gained a lot of weight. She doesn't look fat but she is heavy like a rock. So right now this is the meal plan I'll have to go by for now: Monday am: Chinese Pork Ribs Monday pm: Beef Heart Tuesday am: Chicken w/Bone Tuesday pm: Chicken Gizzard Wednesday am: Turkey Neck Wednesday pm: Beef Thursday am: Chicken w/Bone Thursday pm: Chicken Hearts and Liver Friday am: Chinese Pork Ribs Friday pm: Beef Saturday am: Chicken w/Bone Saturday pm: Chicken Sunday am: Turkey Neck Sunday pm: Chicken Liver & Gizzard If you don't mind my input again. A small adjustment in organs would be good. Hearts and gizzards are not an organ. They are a muscle meat. You want your menu plan to have one full meal of Hearts. Then you want first, one Organ meal of Liver plus another Organ and second, you want a 1/2 Heart meal with 1/4 Liver and 1/4 other organ. Heart will be ten percent of their weekly intake Liver is five percent Other organ is five percent.
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Post by FireAngel on Jul 13, 2015 17:52:24 GMT -5
I have to agree with @poncesmom I guess that's why I asked about a menu again.
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Post by lyles on Jul 13, 2015 19:06:59 GMT -5
No, none of those are avail. and I will not feed her live prey. I also can't keep frozen dead animals in the freezer, as I have to share the freezer with others and they won't approve. I keep her free roam in my bedroom and my health is not great, having to handle raw meat on a daily basis is taking a risk enough. I did get some hand sanitizer to help with germs. I went to the store and found that they were selling turkey necks. The butcher also said that chinese pork ribs have soft bones as well so I picked up 5lbs. of that too. It was an arduous task, but I managed to split the 6lbs. of turkey neck down the bone and also the pork ribs. My dedicated freezer space is at it's limit so I could not get anymore than that, plus I'm way over budget trying to get all the right meats for her plan. On the plus side I now have about two months worth. Livers are pretty much the only organ any of these markets sell, If I happen to see any chicken kidneys I'll pick some up, but they were not at the store I was at. She only gets 1.5 servings of liver a week, that should not be enough to cause any toxicity problems. At the moment I do not have a scale, I ordered a hanging one from ebay (to make weighing wiggling weasles easier) but it won't come in until middle of next week. I portion out the food servings loosely about a third of the size of one of those ziplock sandwich bags, or roughly the size of three golf balls. I can tell she gained a lot of weight. She doesn't look fat but she is heavy like a rock. So right now this is the meal plan I'll have to go by for now: Monday am: Chinese Pork Ribs Monday pm: Beef Heart Tuesday am: Chicken w/Bone Tuesday pm: Chicken Gizzard Wednesday am: Turkey Neck Wednesday pm: Beef Thursday am: Chicken w/Bone Thursday pm: Chicken Hearts and Liver Friday am: Chinese Pork Ribs Friday pm: Beef Saturday am: Chicken w/Bone Saturday pm: Chicken Sunday am: Turkey Neck Sunday pm: Chicken Liver & Gizzard If you don't mind my input again. A small adjustment in organs would be good. Hearts and gizzards are not an organ. They are a muscle meat. You want your menu plan to have one full meal of Hearts. Then you want first, one Organ meal of Liver plus another Organ and second, you want a 1/2 Heart meal with 1/4 Liver and 1/4 other organ. Heart will be ten percent of their weekly intake Liver is five percent Other organ is five percent. I know, I'm keeping an eye out for some chicken kidneys. They are sold out currently, which is why there is a substitution for those two meals.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 14, 2015 9:37:31 GMT -5
Have you found a good Asian market yet? Google "find Asian market near (your location) and then check Yelp for reviews. You want one with a nice meat section, not a small one that is mainly dry goods. You can use pork/beef/lamb/turkey any protein will have "other organs".
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Post by lyles on Jul 14, 2015 13:02:09 GMT -5
Have you found a good Asian market yet? Google "find Asian market near (your location) and then check Yelp for reviews. You want one with a nice meat section, not a small one that is mainly dry goods. You can use pork/beef/lamb/turkey any protein will have "other organs". No we don't, I've lived here for many years and the only thing we have aside from Walmart, Food King and the new HEB is a butcher shop that only carries cuts of beef, chicken and pork. I'm sure the Houston area has one or several but that's an hour drive from here.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 14, 2015 13:40:17 GMT -5
Houston most likely does. We have to make a hour long trip into Nashville once a month or so. We're in a tiny town with more cows than people. The only exotic thing around here is Hardee's. (giggle) It's fun to drive into the big city though and gives us our city fix.
I've driven in Houston traffic (shudder), but look around and maybe you will find an Asian Market somewhere outside of there. Their prices can't be beat and they offer such a nice variety of hard to find organs. Plus, they offer different proteins of Hearts (a muscle meal). You don't want your menu to be too chicken heavy. Chicken is such a common allergen/intolerance. If Nei develops one, then you have to begin getting her use to other proteins to make up for the lack of chicken.
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Post by lyles on Jul 16, 2015 9:56:43 GMT -5
Good news, I went to the grocery store early in the morning and found two packages of beef kidneys. The butcher said that they go fast in the morning which is why I haven't found any before. I chopped them up and put them in half portions in bags. There is enough to last awhile.
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Post by lyles on Jul 16, 2015 12:10:25 GMT -5
Just finished making the dig box for her. That chinchilla sand is very fine and although it claimed to be dust free it is almost like a powder. She is digging crazy in it but is also sneezing up a storm.
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Post by raynebc on Jul 16, 2015 14:14:56 GMT -5
I think you'd be better off with rice or beans, but if you want to stick with sand, you'd probably need a much courser type.
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