lycorisousa
Junior Member
Raw and Whole Prey Feeder
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Posts: 133
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Post by lycorisousa on Dec 8, 2017 16:07:02 GMT -5
I've been interested in moving my babies into a raw diet, I have gathered some various meats, organs and such into my freezer, my babies are going to be 4 months soon and have been taking well to raw meat in general but have mostly been eating their kibble. I did see where it say that I need to know how much they eat and that's part of balancing their diet but my male tends to eat way more than my female. She tends to take to mice and such when I put one in there but she will eat the raw bits over the kibble in an instant.
In order to know how much they are eating do I need to separate them? I don't have two cages and they're in a ferret nation cage currently. Once they're full raw do they need to be separated when they eat in order to keep their meals balanced. I guess overall I'm asking what I good starting point is?
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Post by raynebc on Dec 8, 2017 16:33:02 GMT -5
My female ferrets also appear to eat less than the males, but that's typical. It could be helpful to eventually determine how much each one eats individually, but it's not as important for getting started as long as you know how much food they need combined. That combined amount (by weight) will be how much food you consider to be one meal, so you can prep meals accordingly. I used to feed mine four ferrets 6 ounces of food twice per day, but they have been eating less lately, so I scaled it down to 5.5 ounces per meal, and might scale it down a little more depending on how much they leave.
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Post by Sherry on Dec 9, 2017 11:38:25 GMT -5
It is normal for females to eat less Since they will eat the raw, I'd remove the kibble from the equation for a few days and see how they do. What you do is weigh the meat you put in, and at the next meal weigh what is left over. You want an average of what they both eat together. Do that for a week, divide by 14, and you'll have the average per meal so you know how much to prep.
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lycorisousa
Junior Member
Raw and Whole Prey Feeder
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Posts: 133
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Post by lycorisousa on Dec 10, 2017 14:11:37 GMT -5
Oh, that's much easier. Thank you so much!
We had started transiting to Wyoung from Marshalls since it is the better kibble and rather have them on that but raw is the goal. On the first night our male got into the box I keep the food in removed the clip and was eating straight from the Wyoung bag. Now they're too the point of just picking out the Marshalls but they do prefer the raw over the kibble. I have 2lb of marshall food left which is going to be thrown out since they seem to only be eating the Wyoung and the raw.
I will remove the kibble right now and feed them tonight with some raw. I was over thinking probably and was going over about that vitamin A poisoning afraid if Orion ate too much liver in one meal because knowing him he would eat it all.
Arioch, she tends to take a few bites and leaves the food. She is deemed healthy by the vet and is even gaining weight so I think she is more than likely eating when I'm not home or in bed. Silly little girl.
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Post by raynebc on Dec 11, 2017 18:58:30 GMT -5
If you're concerned one of your ferrets will eat all the liver, some folks here blend liver/heart/organ meals so the ferrets can't pick and choose which of it they're eating. They'll always get the expected ratio of liver.
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lycorisousa
Junior Member
Raw and Whole Prey Feeder
Pfft
Posts: 133
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Post by lycorisousa on Dec 11, 2017 20:36:26 GMT -5
If you're concerned one of your ferrets will eat all the liver, some folks here blend liver/heart/organ meals so the ferrets can't pick and choose which of it they're eating. They'll always get the expected ratio of liver That's a good idea, I'll be sure to do that.
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