Raw Feeding: Dogs vs Ferrets?

[Deleted]

Hi all! I'm new to raw feeding ferrets, though I have 3 dogs who I have raw fed for quite a while. I've been perusing the board to get a feel for the differences between raw feeding dogs versus raw feeding ferrets. What I see come up most often is the emphasis on adequate taurine for carpet sharks, however I wondered if there were anyone else out there who raw feeds multiple types of pets. If so, do you do anything differently for each critter?

I have a 7 month old, male cinnamon Marshall. He isn't my first ferret rodeo, but it has been many years since my last

[Deleted]

Welcome to the HFF

The main difference is that ferrets are obligate or complete carnivores. They have bodies that are designed to eat only meat. They cannot process carbs/starches/fruits/grains or veggies.
Taurine is very important for ferrets. They need a higher taurine count than felines need.

At seven months, your little guy is at a great age to begin feeding raw. Soon, he may imprint on his kibble and then a switch is harder.

We do have ferrents with dogs, cats, skunks and possums (@cindyrads ), you name it, we have them.
I'm trying to think of someone who I can tag for you, that has dogs and feeds raw.

@polecatsandpooches feeds raw and has dogs. I'll tag her for you.

What is your little boy's name?

[Deleted]

I also know Sherry has a fondness for pitbulls. I believe Sherry has several dogs, I tagged her also.

[Deleted]

My little turd is named Finnegan. Once I figure out the interface here, I'll get a pic of him up - it's been a while since I've been on a message board, usually Facebook groups are my stomping grounds...

I was guessing that for as small a critter as a ferret, balancing the calcium-phosphorous ratio is probably a little trickier than for dogs. With the quantities I fed for the dogs - we have two 80 pounders and one 60 pounder here, so we go through a lot of meat - being exact on the c:ph ratio isn't as big of a deal because it tends to balance out in the long run.

[Celene]

We have a very specific "meal plan" which helps balance. From what I've seen with dogs, they eat enough that one meal usually has a little bit of everything in it. Since ferrets eat a lot less, we balance over the course of a week.

I highly recommend reading through some of the links on this thread, particularly the soup recipe and frankenprey menu. Since ferrets imprint on their food and can be difficult to switch, we often start out with a balanced "soup" of pureed meat which is easier to get them to try.

You seem like you're interested in learning the theory of raw feeding ferrets and not simply how to do it, which is why I linked the thread above. I could go on all day with details!

[Deleted]

Hiya! Welcome! I raw feed my ferret boys, however I feed my dog on a high quality dry dog food due to her having so many operations on a certain part of her intestine it is considerably smaller and so if she ate bone it could possibly kill her... Plus she gets the runs if she has too much pure meat due to her operations altering her body (you ask why so many operations? She swallowed a stone... Twice...) any more operations will kill her also as the scarring gets harder to heal again each time, silly dog!

[Deleted]

Aug 28, 2015 18:20:19 GMT -5 Celene said:

I highly recommend reading through some of the links on this thread, particularly the soup recipe and frankenprey menu. Since ferrets imprint on their food and can be difficult to switch, we often start out with a balanced "soup" of pureed meat which is easier to get them to try.

Oh, I have been lurking alllllll over that thread, going through the documents. It's been super helpful from a nutritional balancing perspective.

[Deleted]

Aug 28, 2015 18:20:56 GMT -5 @polecatsandpooches said:

Hiya! Welcome! I raw feed my ferret boys, however I feed my dog on a high quality dry dog food due to her having so many operations on a certain part of her intestine it is considerably smaller and so if she ate bone it could possibly kill her... Plus she gets the runs if she has too much pure meat due to her operations altering her body (you ask why so many operations? She swallowed a stone... Twice...) any more operations will kill her also as the scarring gets harder to heal again each time, silly dog!

Oh no, that's a shame! We have the opposite problem here - I have two dogs that are kibble intolerant, so raw feeding is a necessity here or else they'll get super sick.

[Deleted]

We were just talking about the calcium phosphorus ratio in tripe.
I met with some ferret breeders recently who discussed feeding green tripe.
Then I looked it up and discovered dozens of articles that sang the praises of feeding green tripe to dogs for this very reason.

[Deleted]

Yes, green tripe has a perfect c:p balance of 1:1, so it is a very popular supplement for raw feeders of dogs. It's a bit of a pain to get a hold of sometimes - it's not legal to sell in human groceries because of its unprocessed state, and to be frank it stinks to high heaven. One of my dogs won't touch it, so I have to blend it up into smoothies, which I freeze and serve as popsicles. :x

[Sherry]

I don't, unfortunately, have dogs any longer. Our last passed about 7 years ago. But our cats are raw fed as well as the ferrets.
As for balance I just follow our basic meal plan which is based on whole prey Ferrets do tend to have higher calcium needs than dogs, or many cats and the menu accounts for that.

[Deleted]

Aug 29, 2015 10:57:00 GMT -5 Sherry said:

We tend to feed on the higher side of bone content here, more like 20% bone for the dogs, as two of mine are rescues that had severe malnutrition when we got them. Since they had bone and joint deformities, we had to increase their calcium intake to get them caught up. I think we were able to correct it in time, although one of them still has odd toenail growth, so we'll be maintaining the 20% for a while.

From what I've been reading here, I'm getting the sense that ferrets need 15% - 20% bone intake, is that right?

[Celene]

I would say more generally 10%-15% @giantfeets, although each ferret (like people) has individual needs. Generally if the poops are too wet/unformed there's a good chance they need more bone. If their poops are hard or crumbly, they probably need less. But some ferrets need more than others.

[RedSky]

My ferrets seem to need a higher bone in diet that others do. I think the general thought is 7 to 9 bone in meals a week for ferrets. I think with our dog we usually did 7, depending on how bone heavy a meal was.
Unfortunately my dog passed away earlier this year, but for the time I was feeding both him and the ferrets I would just feed them the same meals most of the time. I think there were a few different meals each week. He would have muscle meat or big bones, or whole fish while they would have whole prey or a chicken wing.

He like your dogs couldn't have most dry dog foods because of his allergies, intolerances and other medical issues. The ones he could have cost about £15 for a 2.5kg bag that would last 4 days or so. Compared to raw and all the benefits the additional cost of feeding dry food didn't make sense.

I'd love to see picture of all four of them once you figure out the forum.

[Deleted]

Let me see here, I can try to get some up.

I work with "exotic" canines, i.e. wolfdogs and coydogs. I have 1 wolfdog who is my personal animal and 2 coydogs who are long-term fosters/possible foster fails. They need such specialized care that I doubt I'l find a home for them, but we have our eyes open all the time.

This is Zelda, one of my coydogs. She and her sister, Midna, were the result of what we think is a breeder who crossed a male coyote with a female wolfdog. When the breeder couldn't sell them, they were dumped in the countryside. We were told that the mother and the rest of the litter were killed, and the two I have are the only ones left.

Here is another of Zelda. She's a very photogenic girl.

Here is her sister, Midna.

And here is my wolfdog, Bastas. He's a lovely creature, he just turned 3 this year.