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Post by Sherry on Dec 22, 2017 10:20:31 GMT -5
When introducing new proteins I tend to give one for a full day (both meals) then gauge stools. I go back to one they are good with. Wait a day or two then intro another, etc.
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stacylo
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Post by stacylo on Dec 27, 2017 9:47:01 GMT -5
Okay an update! This is the first week that their food has been totally balanced since i have pork kidneys now. Much to my surprise Calamity ate the liver/kidney soupie without any convincing. Rogue on the other hand, not surprisingly, needed much convincing but she's figured out that when I pick her up and put a spoon or bowl near her face that she's expected to eat. So she begrudgingly will.
They dig the turkey necks too and muscle meat has been going along great. They still seem a bit unconvinced about grinds but they will eat them when I mix them with more familiar bone-in meals. All on their own grinds aren't quite being accepted yet. Which is so funny to me considering they started off eating FDR and Rad Cat grinds. Now it's as though they're too good for them.
They are quite unsure about duck necks though.
But at this point they will eat: Chicken legs Chicken wings (but not really as of late as we talked about earlier) Rabbit Quail Turkey Pork Lamb Chicken hearts Chicken liver Pork Kidney Duck (ish. not entirely sold yet)
Working on: FDR Grinds (lamb, pork)
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Post by Sherry on Dec 28, 2017 10:09:33 GMT -5
Oh wow! They are doing so well. Let's get them eating a balanced menu. As for the grinds, I found a lot of mine refused grinds once chewing whole meats.
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stacylo
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Post by stacylo on Dec 29, 2017 18:10:25 GMT -5
Here is how I have the menu currently set up. It's based on 15 meals instead of 14 because when organ/heart day is only 1 day apart they have extra runny poops. And when they have 3 bone-in meals in a row, Rogue has chalky poops. I number then 1 to 15 and then start at the beginning again. Do you think this would work in terms of balance? It's one meal off from the example menu.
So I have two bone-ins and then an organ meal of some sort.
Meal 1 - Chicken Heart Meal 2 - Bone-in Meal 3 - Bone-in Meal 4 - Muscle Meat Meal 5 - Bone-in Meal 6 - Bone-in Meal 7 - Chicken heart, chicken liver, pork kidney (50% heart, 25% liver, 25% kidness Meal 8 - Bone-in Meal 9 - Bone-in Meal 10 - Muscle Meat Meal 11 - Bone-in Meal 12 - Bone-in Meal 13 - Chicken liver/pork kidney (50% liver, 50% kidney) Meal 14 - Bone-in Meal 15 - Bone-in
We're getting a baby boy ferret at the beginning of February. He will need to be transitioned to raw. Do I create a new thread or add him to this one?
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Post by Sherry on Dec 30, 2017 10:18:57 GMT -5
For the new lad add him on here with the 15 meals, is that 7 days and one half?
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stacylo
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Post by stacylo on Dec 30, 2017 10:28:48 GMT -5
Okie dokie! Should be the beginning of February.
And yep that's 7 days and one half.
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Post by Sherry on Jan 2, 2018 10:54:02 GMT -5
Updates? How are they doing? Can you post a menu with what they are eating(include the proteins used instead of just bone in, muscle meat) so I can see how balanced the proteins are to one another.
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stacylo
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Post by stacylo on Jan 2, 2018 15:50:18 GMT -5
Yes! I'm still spoon feeding liver/kidney mix to Rogue but Calamity eats it with no problem. They've been eating every thing else no problem as well. Because we've gotten in some new proteins I haven't been doing a set "on Mondays they get this meat, Tuesdays this meat, etc." so I'll post what their month of December to current looks like since I keep a food journal for them.
Unless it is an organ meal, or it says muscle meat, you can assume that the rest is bone-in.
December 1-5 was when I was trying to make them interested in chicken wings (again). It failed so I moved on lol. But that one week isn't very balanced. And I didn't get another organ until the end-ish of the month when it shows up on the menu.
December: 1 - AM quail, PM chicken wings 2 - AM chicken wings (because they didn't eat it at night), PM rabbit
3 - AM chicken wings, PM quail 4 - AM chicken wings, PM chicken wings (because they didn't eat it in the morning) 5 - AM chicken wing (again because they didn't eat it last night), PM chicken heart 6 - AM quail, PM rabbit 7 - AM turkey muscle meat, PM quail 8 - AM quail (because they didn't eat it last night), PM chicken wing (they ate it that time) 9 - AM chicken heart & liver, PM rabbit
10 - AM chicken wing, PM lamb muscle meat 11 - AM lamb muscle meat (because they didn't eat it last night), PM quail 12 - AM rabbit, PM chicken heart and liver 13 - AM chicken leg, PM quail 14 - AM chicken heart, PM rabbit 15 - AM chicken leg, PM turkey muscle meat 16 - AM quail, PM rabbit
17 - AM chicken heart and liver, PM chicken leg 18 - AM duck, PM lamb muscle meat 19 - AM lamb muscle meat (because they didn't eat it last night), PM quail 20 - AM rabbit, PM chicken heart 21 - AM chicken leg, PM lamb grind 22 - AM chicken heart, PM chicken wing 23 - AM quail, PM lamb muscle meat
24 - AM rabbit, PM rabbit (we were gone for most of Christmas eve so I put out both meals at once and figured it could be the same protein for this bone-in meal so they couldn't pick out which one they favored.) 25 - AM chicken heart, liver & kidney, PM quail 26 - AM chicken leg, PM turkey muscle meat 27 - AM rabbit, PM lamb grind 28 - AM kidney/liver soupie, PM quail 29 - AM duck, PM chicken heart 30 - AM chicken wings, PM quail
31 - AM lamb muscle meat, PM rabbit 1 - AM duck, PM chicken heart, liver, pork kidney 2 - AM chicken leg, and tonight I've thawed quail
Also, plans changed and we are adopting an adult bonded pair. A male that's 3.5 years old they estimate. And a female who is 2 years old. Their owner died unexpectedly. It sounds like they were treated well except that they were on a terrible diet and the rescue place says that they "love Dr. Pepper". (I don't think they were giving them Dr. Pepper but must've figured that out somehow.) They're currently on a dry cat food. Not sure which. We go to pick them up on Saturday and I assume I'll start the transition pretty much immediately.
I assume since my two babies are stubborn that I should be somewhat prepared for the tough transition of adult ferrets? I'm sort of nervous!
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Post by Sherry on Jan 3, 2018 8:16:45 GMT -5
Thanks for posting that Okay- we need to work at getting heart, liver/other organ in every week no matter what else they are eating. Depending on how many whole animal grinds they are eating they'll need at least one full meal heart, and one full meal liver/other organ. You have a decent variety there, but need to switch it up a bit more often. The ideal is a bare minimum 3 proteins WEEKLY. And with the new ones plan on doing the "grab and dab" method with raw puree
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stacylo
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Post by stacylo on Jan 6, 2018 15:03:40 GMT -5
Okay sounds good! Today they enthusiastically accepted duck which has been less than enthusiastic in the past. So that's exciting! I'll give it a week and post a meal week again and see what you think.
I've adopted the rescue ferrets and Heather aged the male, Winston, at at least 5 and probably 7. He has thinning fur and not that I've seen tons of ferrets but he's by far the itchiest thing I've ever seen. Watching him itch makes me itch just thinking about it. So we go to the vet on Tuesday and we'll get all sorts of things checked.
The female, Echo, I THINK is around 3 years old. I'm still waiting to hear back but doing my own age inspection from other facebook posts I think she's 3.... She appears to be much healthier than him. Also a bit itchy but not like him and her fur isn't thinking out yet. They're both under 2 pounds. She's 670 grams and legit too skinny. He's 820 grams.
After a few scruff 'n stuff attempts the female will begrudgingly lick soupie off my finger but the male ferret thinks it's total poison. So we'll go slowly. And if he is actually 7, will he eventually switch over or is it a moot point?
Edited to add: Heather thinks Echo is around 4. And upon closer inspection I believe they both are adrenal. They itch like crazy and fur is thin at the base of the tail. His much more so than hers. I'm not entirely sure what to do about the logistics of kibble and raw.
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Post by Sherry on Jan 7, 2018 11:39:31 GMT -5
They do sound adrenal. And the oldest ferret I helped switch was 8, so no issue there. The one thing with the older one is have a BG done before treatment. Adrenal can mask insulinoma by artificially raising blood sugar levels. Once treated they can crash if you aren't watching for it.
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stacylo
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Post by stacylo on Jan 7, 2018 12:46:41 GMT -5
Yeah sounds good. We'll get a full everything done on Tuesday at the latest. I'm going to try to sweet talk my way into an appointment tomorrow instead though.
As for the transition, what I've been doing is pulling their kibble away then 2 hours later doing dab n grab and then giving them their kibble back for a couple hours. Then pulling it for two hours and doing dab n grab again. Looks like I can do this 3 or 4 times a day. Do you think this will work okay?
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stacylo
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Post by stacylo on Jan 7, 2018 17:11:10 GMT -5
Oh, and another question I have: when the time comes that all four ferrets are in the same space is, what do I do about having kibble out? Will Rogue and Calamity go backwards and start eating kibble? That's my only concern. I don't want them to pick up bad habits.
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Post by Sherry on Jan 8, 2018 6:47:22 GMT -5
It may not even be an issue depending on how fast the 2 new ones come along And tbh if at all possible push them to catch up.The sooner off the kibble and eating even soupies the better for them. Each time you grab and dab, offer some from your finger first to see if they'll accept it. As for your others eating the kibble- they might- or they may simply decide they'll no longer accept it.
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stacylo
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Post by stacylo on Jan 8, 2018 22:15:48 GMT -5
I would love to have them caught up. Today was day three and they will both lick soupy off of my finger and Winston (surprisingly enough) will lick it off a teaspoon and had about 1 to 2 teaspoons three times today. Echo will only accept about a teaspoon total each time and only from my hand. She won't take a spoon yet.
I push a vet update on facebook but will include it here below as well. At what point do you think it's okay to leave them out with a bowl of soupy over night and see if they'll eat it?
Vet update: Good news - Vet says she doesn't currently suspect adrenal in either due to their fur thinning being a bit all over but feels like neither are experiencing hair loss in chunks and says their organs feel fine. Says we can do ultrasounds if we really want to but she suspects that waiting would be okay. Their blood glucose came back fine too. Echo's (on the left) was a bit lower than Winston's (on the right) surprisingly (the exact record is in my car and it's pouring rain so I'm not going to get the exact reading right now) but said that they were both within a healthy range for a fasting ferret. They also have no fleas and no mites.
Bad news - She says that they both have bacteria and yeast in their ears and that Winston's ears and teeth are both "impressively terrible". Echo's is also bad but not nearly as bad as Winston. Says that his teeth grinding is most likely caused by all the dental work needed. They have terribly dry skin and says I can give them an oatmeal bath more frequently than normal to try and help with the itching. She believes that the fur thinning and itchiness is caused by having a super bad diet for so long and that I should notice a decline in both as they get settled with a raw diet and to let her know if that doesn't happen.
They have ear drops and we scheduled dental exams where she will also get full CBC blood work done. And she says to do my best to fatten them up.
Finally, she said that, as a new ferret owner I think they are so sick because my two girls are so healthy and thriving that it makes these two adults look super sick when in actuality they're kind of on par with what most ferrets experience unfortunately and she's glad I took them in
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