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Post by Deleted on Aug 29, 2015 19:06:50 GMT -5
They are simply magnificent. What are their personalities like?
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Post by Deleted on Aug 29, 2015 19:11:39 GMT -5
Oops, forgot the most important one for this forum!
This is Finnegan, my 7 month old cinnamon male. I don't have any nice pictures of him yet because he's a wiggle worm and my camera isn't set up for close up shots. I'll need to adjust some settings to get him.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 29, 2015 19:17:40 GMT -5
They are simply magnificent. What are their personalities like? They all have very distinct personalities. The coydogs were unfortunately treated very badly during their formative months, so they are extremely shy and unsocial. They don't like strangers at all and are very neophobic - and I mean really neophobic. If I get a package in the mail, they will bolt outside and will not come back inside until I've opened it and put its contents away. But Midna is a little bolder and will come check things out sooner than Zelda. Zelda is my little wild child, she's like a hurricane. She doesn't feel anything halfway, so when she's happy, she's ecstatic, but when she's upset it takes a lot of soothing and reassurance to calm her. Bastas the black wolfdog is my social, confident one. He likes going out in public and hamming it up. The girls unfortunately can't leave the house often as it upsets them. They're homebodies.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 29, 2015 20:28:22 GMT -5
They are so interesting. I had to look up Neophobic. I had no idea there was a disorder like this found in canines.
Their personalities also surprised me. They look so strong and confident. Then you describe them as rather fragile inside. I'm glad that the coydogs found you and I'm sorry their formative months were difficult. We always like to think of a puppy being happy and having puppy fun.
Zelda is a perfect name for a wild child. Bastas who is so handsome has good reason to be confident and I love that he is a big old Ham.
You have done some remarkable work with them. I look forward to more stories and pictures. :wave3:
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Post by FerretsnFalcons on Aug 29, 2015 22:30:42 GMT -5
Awww, your canines are beautiful! Irresponsible breeders make me so sad, I'm glad you rescued them and gave them the kind of specialized care that these special creatures need. So many people get wolfdogs/coydogs without knowing what they're getting into. I see a lot of people claiming they're rehoming "wolfdogs" (actually huskies or husky/shepherd mixes) on Craigslist.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 29, 2015 22:49:15 GMT -5
Awww, your canines are beautiful! Irresponsible breeders make me so sad, I'm glad you rescued them and gave them the kind of specialized care that these special creatures need. So many people get wolfdogs/coydogs without knowing what they're getting into. I see a lot of people claiming they're rehoming "wolfdogs" (actually huskies or husky/shepherd mixes) on Craigslist. Yes, unfortunately the coydogs were in that situation. They were sold to a home who thought that since wolves in the wild only eat a few times a week, they only needed to feed the girls every so often, as well. > So they were unfortunately very sick But, they're big and healthy now! We're big on raw diets here because my wolfdog and one of the coydogs are kibble intolerant - any processed food turns them into fountains of diarrhea. We've also used a raw diet to successfully control bladder stones in my best friend's dog, so I'm looking forward to switching my catsnake. We've seen so many awesome benefits for the dogs - clean teeth, fresh breath, soft shiny coats, improved joint movement, balancing urine pH - that I'm sure we;ll see similar results for the ferret. Now if we can just get the little monster interested. The soup mixture actually looks very similar to the treats I make for my dogs. One of mine is very picky and won't eat the organs he's supposed to, so we have to sneak them in. I regularly make gnarly smoothies of beef and chicken proteins, chicken livers, and vitamin supplements for the dogs, so it shouldn't be hard to adjust the recipe for the dook monster.
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Post by FerretsnFalcons on Aug 29, 2015 23:00:16 GMT -5
Oh no, they were so skinny, and their nails were so long! I'm glad their story has a happy ending. I want to switch my German Shepherd to whole prey, but I have two problems: 1) It's expensive and my parents think it's "gross" (even though it's what I feed the ferrets!) and 2) He's reluctant to eat it! I don't think he recognizes it as food, it took me almost an hour to tear bits off a guinea pig and feed it to him. I'm determined to switch him eventually though, and when I do I hope he becomes as soft and beautiful as your canines! What kinds of things do you feed them- whole prey or chicken, organs, tripe, beef, venison, etc.?
PS: Your fuzzy is adorable too!
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Post by Deleted on Aug 29, 2015 23:12:24 GMT -5
I find that when you really get into the groove of raw, the costs are actually less than if you were to feed a high quality kibble. Having a chest freezer will really help - it gives you a LOT of flexibility on what price per pound you pay for meat. I just got 200 pounds of chicken at 29 cents per pound, so a total of $58 for all that chicken. Of course we have to mix things up and offer other meats - who wants to eat chicken all day every day? - but it's a great baseline for meat and bone intake. That way, also, if I don't come across any good meat sales for the next few weeks, well, I won't have to break down and spend a lot because I have so much in storage. Getting them to switch can be hard in some cases. Some dogs take right to it - I switched a 9 year old heeler and she had zero problem with it and was completely switched within a week - and some don't. My wolfdog is really picky and would prefer to eat kibble even though it gives him the green apple trots. We don't do whole prey, simply because I don't have easy access to the amounts I would need. We go through 6-9 pounds of meat per day here, so we have to buy in bulk. I use chicken quarters as my baseline food. They tend to have 25% bone content, so we lower that by either feeding all muscle meat for at least one meal a week or just by adding a few ounces of muscle meat - usually gizzards or hearts - to each meal. The coydogs will slurp up livers and kidneys, but I have to trick the wolfdog into it by making meat popsicles. I usually mix chicken livers, chicken and beef protein powders, a superfood multivitamin powder, ground flax, salmon oil, and whatever else I have handy to make it fun. Sometimes peanut butter, pineapple, bananas, blueberries, etc. I feed anything we can get our hands on - if it's meat, we'll eat it. My only exception is wild boar. The risk of parasites is so much greater than with human grade pork, I just don't want to risk it. Some raw feeders of dogs do, and they say to just freeze the meat for 2-3 weeks, but I'm just too grossed out by it.
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Post by Sherry on Aug 30, 2015 4:34:31 GMT -5
Actually just jumping back to the original topic- believe it or not when feeding an entirely frankenprey diet we are actually feeding 20+% Sat and do the math one day after someone kept arguing the point with me! That is however if you feed the full 9 bone in meals. If you feed the seven it would be closer to 15-17%
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Post by Sherry on Aug 30, 2015 4:38:51 GMT -5
Giantfeets- your dogs are stunning! And you can really see their wild counterparts in them. Especially your wolf dog. He is awesome(in the traditional sense)
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Post by Deleted on Aug 30, 2015 10:45:00 GMT -5
Actually just jumping back to the original topic- believe it or not when feeding an entirely frankenprey diet we are actually feeding 20+% Sat and do the math one day after someone kept arguing the point with me! That is however if you feed the full 9 bone in meals. If you feed the seven it would be closer to 15-17% Interesting! Bone intake is a sticky subject with a lot of raw feeders for dogs. Older models ranged all over the place, from offering 80% raw meaty bones to just 10% bone material. Many places agree now on about 20%, although others say that anywhere between 20% and 30% is fine, depending on the dog. I like the idea of a set meal plan for introducing ferrets to raw, as well as for ensuring balanced nutrition. It makes me wonder why we don't have something similar codified for dogs, especially puppies. For most people who are new to raw, we normally don't suggest going whole hog on it and starting a puppy out on raw; learning raw AND trying to provide for a puppy during its critical growth stages is usually a set up for a long-term health issue.
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Post by Sherry on Aug 30, 2015 11:02:40 GMT -5
We call ours a basic frankenprey menu. It is in the raw feeding board
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Post by Deleted on Aug 30, 2015 12:02:07 GMT -5
Are there any other models, or is Frankenprey pretty much the standard?
With dogs, the BARF vs Prey model arguments get really heated sometimes. We tend to go with BARF model, which approves of certain vegetables being added, but we have the happy defense of dealing with coydogs here - coyote diets typically include around 10% fruits and veggies, and my girls are delighted when they get a handful of berries or some skinned cactus pears.
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