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Post by gnarlysalamander on Feb 24, 2011 5:34:47 GMT -5
so far i've only been feeding it re-hydrated. i don't plan to feed it dry unless i'm having them watched by someone unwilling to feed the slimy stuff.
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Post by gnarlysalamander on Feb 24, 2011 20:16:11 GMT -5
ok so update for today [so far]...
i made the mix today about 50% mush/soup and 50% freeze dried [still going with beef because it's getting the best response]. i put it in sammy/jaydon's cage and went downstairs to clean out the others' cage before i brought them upstairs to play. in the 15 minutes it took me to do that, sammy and jaydon cleared the plate. i put a second one down, and so far bandit's eaten a few bites. jayjay and frankie are still in super-hyper mode so i'm going to let them run off a bit of energy before i try to get them to eat any... i think tomorrow i'm going to try the 50/50 mix with chicken for sammy and jaydon, and if they eat it well i'm going to consider taking away the kibble for good. it even seemed today like they hardly ate anything, and were waiting for the soup; which i can believe considering how much they ate so fast. i'll stop back later and let everyone know how it went with the other guys.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 24, 2011 20:50:36 GMT -5
YAY! Progress! My girls will scarff down soup faster than I can refill the bowl Seems like they loved it! For the ones that are reluctant, you can dab a bit on their nose and let them lick it off. You can also use your finger and let them lick it off. Congrats!
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Post by Sherry on Feb 24, 2011 22:29:23 GMT -5
That's fantastic progress And the great thing abou thaving some that are ahead of others is the "monkey see, monkey do" attitude of ferrets
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Post by gnarlysalamander on Feb 25, 2011 17:48:02 GMT -5
well, i fell asleep last night before getting to give the update, but i have a promising report!
bandit and frankie ate the food right up out of my hand when i offered it to them, but insisted on being let go to play so they didn't eat a very large quantity. jayjay would eat pieces from my fingers if i kept him in a "half scruff". basically i held him, but didn't lift. a few of the pieces he ate from the palm of my hand, and he seemed to enjoy it but still wasn't quite sure.
today i ran to the grocery store on my lunch break and got a small package of chicken wings to try with sammy and jaydon. i stabbed a few holes in one, and squirted some ferretone on top to hopefully entice them to lick it long enough to realize it's the same thing they've been eating, only bigger. i took their kibble out before i left the wing in the cage [they're mad at me because i took away their blankie in case they decided to move it out of the bowl]. they spent a good 10 minutes or so licking off the tone. jaydon tried to chew the end a few times, seemingly confused as to why the entire contents of the bowl was moving at once. at one point he picked it up, but didn't move it from the bowl.
this is ok to leave out for 12 hours i think? it has the skin still on it. i'm not going to leave it quite that long but hoped it would be ok at least until i went to bed, and i'll probably close off the cage while they're playing so i dont find it under the bed in a week. how long should i give them to figure it out before i cut it up into smaller sections? it's not the entire wing... i guess it'd be considered elbow to wrist? i figured i'd have to cut it up for them to actually eat it but i wanted to see how they'd do with the whole thing.
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Post by gnarlysalamander on Feb 26, 2011 0:51:49 GMT -5
wooo! great news! first, jaydon ate almost ALL of the wing [wingette?]. the bones are still there with some meat on them, but he took a lot of breaks over the course of getting that much down so he might not be throwing in the towel yet. i think his jaw just needed breaks. he definitely DID crunch through some bone though, seemingly without a second thought because he kept going like it was nothing. i wanted so badly to take a picture but every time i got near him he looked up at me with the "mom, are you kidding?" look and wouldn't start eating again until i walked away. i couldn't believe how much he was loving it! whenever i heard him chomping i'd mute the tv and sit there staring. sammy never went back to try and eat more, but she didn't go into the cage at all so i'll assume she just wasn't hungry. she's currently asleep under the dresser, but i'm sure she'll be going to get soupie whenever she realizes it's there. after he'd made it a good way through the wing, i let the other monsters out to play. they got chicken soupie with the freeze dried chopped up into tiny pieces and mixed in, with extra water so it would be extra soupy since they were undecided if they liked the chicken or not. i sprinkled a few pieces of kibble on top to hopefully entice jayjay. i don't mind doing this because the others eat around the kibble anyway. i put an extra wing down too, just out of curiosity to see if anyone would touch it .
frankie was licking at the soup. i didn't witness him eating any chunks but he went to the bowl and started lapping willingly. bandit ate some chunks, but he was more organized about it. he'd lick all the liquid off of a piece and only then eat it before moving on to the next one. he also licked at the wing, but i dont think he realized he was supposed to bite into it. i'll chop the next one up for him. i'm really happy about jayjay today. this soup was extra gross looking so i didn't want to try and hand feed him. i used my "half scruff" and got him to eat a bit off of a spoon. i tried moving the spoon into the bowl like i've read to do, but he was holding his ground. i feel mean, but i finally scruffed him and stuck his face up to the soup and he started eating! only a very little bit, and ohhhhhh boyyyyyyy was his face priceless [lips curled up, eyes squinted to almost nothing... basically like if he was being forced to eat a lemon]. i managed to let go and have him eat a few bites on his own, so when he started to back away to run off and play i let him. he was a good boy today
if jaydon is eating chicken wings, and sammy scarfs down the beef does anyone think i'd be ok to attempt cutting out the kibble? i'm not concerned about jaydon at all, but i'll weigh sammy every other day and monitor her for at least one meal a day [she's so tiny that any weight loss would seem drastic.] with the other kids, unless i have to open at work they've been sleeping in my room with no kibble access. it's soup/mush, or starve until morning. it's always gone when i wake up, but i make sure to give them kibble first thing because of jayjay. if i took jaydon and sammy off of kibble, how long can i safely feed them what they've been getting before i have to worry about deficiencies? i know i haven't had a lot of focus on bones or organs, but they're included in the freeze dried so it's not like they aren't getting any. poops are normal, and they've been getting progressively more and more raw vs kibble over the last few days.
about RMB... i really don't see myself paying for rabbit, nor can i really stomach imagining them eat it. is it ok to ONLY feed chicken bones, as long as i rotate proteins on other days? as in organ/muscle meat meals? i'm still trying to decide what the third source is going to be. i imagine it being whatever's on sale at the store that week, but i don't want to keep adding in new things until they're confident with the first couple. i'm all tapped out this week, but next pay day i'm going to check out the asian market and see what kind of goodies they might have as far as organs/hearts.
ooh also... people keep mentioning ferret jerky... i know it's unavoidable and eventually i'm going to find something stashed somewhere. my worry is, if they stash a bone and go back for it later, how long will it take to get dried out to the point that it's dangerous?
sorry for the long rant, i'm really proud of the fuzzies tonight!
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Post by Sherry on Feb 26, 2011 1:07:22 GMT -5
You should be proud of them! They've done really well Ok, on to your questions With stashed bone, it really depends on how much meat is left on it. A dry bone(meat eaten off), I'd say a week to a week and a half. A full wing, a bit longer, maybe 2-3 weeks? Best to do a bi weekly search for it. Yes, you can just use chicken bone. But don't forget- they can also have cornish hen, and if you find them, turkey necks Other proteins could include turkey meat, pork, beef. I can also buy dressed quail in a couple of stores, so keep your eyes open, and browse all the freezer sections! For Jaydon, I'm not too concerned about removing the kibble, but I'd really like to see Sammy on a second protein before doing that, and also starting to try some bone. Unless you want to use eggshell powder as a temporary replacement for her calcium. Bandit and Sammy, start slowly increasing their chunks sizes, as well as reducing the soup mixed in. You want them eating straight chunks. For Jayjay and Frankie- just keep working with them! They'll get there. You are doing really well with all of them you know
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Post by gnarlysalamander on Feb 26, 2011 10:12:49 GMT -5
ok, update for the morning: the wings are gone! i'm almost positive it was jaydon that ate both, because he started gnawing on the second one as i was falling asleep. the mush mix is only about 2/3 gone, but i did make a HUGE batch of it last night. i'm going to do a double check around the room to make sure the second one isn't hidden somewhere, but i'm pretty sure he ate it because of the number of bone pieces left lying around the cage. and those definitely have the ends chewed off i think for breakfast i'm going to make a fresh batch of soup and try to force feed the less willing ones. hopefully someone can answer this before i get to making it, but about how much is an ice cube sized portion? i was hoping not to have to go out before work, my food scale takes some weird shaped battery that i've never seen other than in the scale. i'm going to leave kibbles once i leave for the day, but i want them to eat a meal's worth of something good, instead of just a few bites or enough to know they're trying it. i guess i got inspired after seeing the success sticking jayjay's face in the mush got me. jaydon didn't touch the soup at all that i saw last night, he was wayyyy too caught up in that wing. i think i'm going to give him one in the cage when i leave even though i have to leave kibble for sammy, and we'll see what happens.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 26, 2011 11:40:31 GMT -5
A typical ice cube is 1 oz.
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Post by gnarlysalamander on Feb 26, 2011 13:05:06 GMT -5
hm. alright, in that case sammy ate more than enough for me to be satisfied with. jayjay [surprise surprise] ate quite a bit on his own. he made faces over the chunks, but i used stella and chewy's instead of the AFS and he seemed to like that a ton. actually, i only used that because i accidentally dropped the sample baggie on the floor and he took one sniff and ran off with it. frankie ate a good bit, and bandit spent a good time at the bowl but i think he was just licking the liquid off and not actually chewing anything. and again, he sniffed at the wing but went for the soup instead. my little champion didn't even blink at the soup, he went straight for the wing
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Post by Deleted on Feb 26, 2011 13:29:02 GMT -5
Yay! They are doing great! My two love Stella's freeze dried, especially the chicken and duck-duck.
How thick is the soup? If they are eating it good, you could try making it a bit thicker.
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Post by Sherry on Feb 26, 2011 17:25:55 GMT -5
I think with Jaydon, I'd start varying his proteins now, as well! He now knows meat is food, so new introductions would likely be really good at this point, so he doesn't imprint on just wings.
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Post by gnarlysalamander on Feb 26, 2011 22:38:40 GMT -5
i totally agree. the soup is getting progressively thicker, and i plan to start varying i just figured i'd stick with chicken today so they were all eating the same thing. i read that people did it that way so if they happened to have problems digesting something, you'd know exactly what was the cause. and like i said, i plan to visit the asian market soon. sammy liked the chicken hearts back in the day, so hopefully she can be on the same page as jaydon when we get to that.
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Post by Sherry on Feb 26, 2011 23:23:17 GMT -5
Actually, you can introduce heart as soon as you want. Getting that taurine into them certainly won't hurt!
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Post by gnarlysalamander on Feb 27, 2011 16:49:42 GMT -5
that's what i plan to get at the asian market =] the regular stores around me don't have much of a selection other than the "normal" stuff
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