lycorisousa
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Raw and Whole Prey Feeder
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Post by lycorisousa on Jan 14, 2018 19:45:51 GMT -5
Arioch
1. Ferret's weight: 1.12LB
2. Ferret's Daily Medications: N/A
3. Ferret has eaten "X" amount on average per meal: 2oz
4. Stools on various proteins. normal
5. Activity levels: plays for around 4 hours a day, seems to have more energy.
Orion
1. Ferret's weight: 2.10lb
2. Ferret's Daily Medications: N/A
3. Ferret has eaten "X" amount on average per meal: 3oz
4. Stools on various proteins: normal
5. Activity levels: Has been more sleepy plays for about 30 minutes to an hour at a time and sleeps for hours
Weekly Menu:
Monday: Chicken Legs/Wings bone in
Tuesday: Chicken Legs & wings bone in dinner: beef cheek meat
Wednesday: Bone-in chicken neck & wing dinner: beef heart
Thursday: Chicken wing & drum dinner: Large and medium mouse
Friday: Chicken Legs and wing bone-in dinner: beef heart/kidney and chicken liver
Saturday: Chicken necks dinner: pork
Sunday: Chicken wing and leg bone-in dinner: chicken liver and beef kidney
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Post by Sherry on Jan 15, 2018 7:41:11 GMT -5
Are they actually eating the bones at the moment?
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lycorisousa
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Raw and Whole Prey Feeder
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Post by lycorisousa on Jan 15, 2018 9:26:40 GMT -5
I crush them up for them, they are eating most of the bone. I do find some fragments left behind but not a lot.
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Post by LindaM on Jan 15, 2018 16:41:08 GMT -5
Finding a few fragments are normal, once in a while the hubby and I will go and clear out the "boneyards" to the irritation of Athena who doesn't want people to touch the "skeletons" hidden there. As long as they are actually eating most of it, you're okay. Some fuzzies are little tricksters and will just stash it and eat the meat off, leaving all of the bones, and that's when you need to really worry.
How heavily are you crushing the bones right now?
Have you tried some other bone-in proteins too, or just chicken for now? I see mouse on there. Do they eat the bones from the mice too? Their menu is very chicken heavy right now.
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lycorisousa
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Post by lycorisousa on Jan 15, 2018 19:09:09 GMT -5
Finding a few fragments are normal, once in a while the hubby and I will go and clear out the "boneyards" to the irritation of Athena who doesn't want people to touch the "skeletons" hidden there. As long as they are actually eating most of it, you're okay. Some fuzzies are little tricksters and will just stash it and eat the meat off, leaving all of the bones, and that's when you need to really worry. How heavily are you crushing the bones right now? Have you tried some other bone-in proteins too, or just chicken for now? I see mouse on there. Do they eat the bones from the mice too? Their menu is very chicken heavy right now. I crush it pretty heavily but there is always some good size pieces left in it. They tend to leave smaller pieces behind. Arioch doesn't like me to touch her skeletons either. I can always get a photo of what they are leaving behind but I feel they are getting most of it. It is very chicken heavy but that's mostly what I have at the store near me that have edible bone for them. I thought about seeing what I could find online. As for the mice they will eat all of it rare occasions they live some intestines behind. I know its concerned whole prey and wasn't sure how badly it would mess up trying to balance everything. I plan to head to the Asian market next pay check and see what I can find. One store near me some times gets alligator and frog in. Any other suggests to change out the chicken so it would be less often would be great I feel bad for it being mostly that but have been trying to find other things. They decided on me they no longer wanted kibble so I grabbed what I could.
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Post by LindaM on Jan 15, 2018 19:14:44 GMT -5
It's not too hard to balance whole prey with Frankenprey, many feeders do mixed diets. Here, this chart will be a good help for you! holisticferretforum.com/natural-diet/raw-diet-the-meat-of-the-site/balancing-frankenprey-with-alternative-meals/Froglegs make for a wonderful bone-in addition! It is quite lean though, so I tend to offer a fattier meat before or after it, instead of another lean meat. For now, using the chart above, you can try adding in more mice until you get better bone-in variety. Just one quickie question, your mice are adults yes? Otherwise they'd only be counted as a snack and not a meal. Check for items such as rabbit, duck, quail, froglegs and such at the Asian Market.
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lycorisousa
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Post by lycorisousa on Jan 15, 2018 19:18:20 GMT -5
We had a bone-in tonight and they decided to eat and play this is what was left bone wise. These were necks.
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lycorisousa
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Post by lycorisousa on Jan 15, 2018 19:30:17 GMT -5
I'll look at that when I get on my laptop, thank you!
They were labeled medium and large size which I figured the large was a full adult and medium may be not so much right under adult stage? 2oz in weight was the difference between them and got them at petsmart. I started them on pinkies as a snack back when I first got them. Orion really only showed interest once I brought home the big ones. He had an alternative meal ready just in case, he took to it and saw them fighting over the bigger one.
While I had my foster her mom wanted her on a raw diet so my babies quickly got to the point of that was all they were wanting. Sadly next pay day isn't until the 25th but I should be able to grab a couple of more mice and see if Kroger has anything strange (they tend to). Local butchers were proven to be less helpful so I really hope the Asian market pulls through. I haven't been in a while and never tend to look at the meat when I did go.
Thank you for your help.
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Post by Sherry on Jan 16, 2018 8:01:48 GMT -5
That is fine if that is all that is left behind One good way to tell is the stools. They should be wet but formed. If really sloppy they aren't getting enough bone. If dry and grainy(texture) too much.
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lycorisousa
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Post by lycorisousa on Jan 16, 2018 8:24:04 GMT -5
I've noticed some poops have been a bit liquid and that tends to be Orion's (they each have their own litter box that they prefer to use so it makes it easy to monitor) but that's been with some other meals. If they're liquid with bone meals is there something I can add?
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Post by LindaM on Jan 16, 2018 17:00:09 GMT -5
Your meals such as heart or organ, will create nasty tar-like poops. That is totally normal. We suggest to follow-up that meal with the next meal being a bone-in meal, which will firm up the poops again.
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lycorisousa
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Raw and Whole Prey Feeder
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Post by lycorisousa on Jan 17, 2018 9:39:07 GMT -5
I'll keep that in mind, I don't want to have any unneeded freakouts.
Checked the stores yesterday and couldn't find any frog legs might see if they can order some for me. Petsmart closed early because of the weather and roads being bad. I will grab some mice tomorrow or later today if road conditions improve later today.
I was looking on my pet carnivore and thought I could possibly order some full grinds of rabbit and maybe muskrat if the Asian market doesn't have anything I can use. It says it's round whole prey and that would give them something other than chicken to eat.
We are going to get a deep freezer too for their food since we are keeping only about 2 weeks worth at a time right now. That will allow me to purchase more food at a time and I feel bad for making publix special order heart and kidney for me and I only purchase 5 pounds out of each case. I did see my pet carnivore had a beef organ mix it says it's 50% Beef Heart, 30% Beef Liver and 20% Beef Kidney.
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Post by LindaM on Jan 17, 2018 15:49:14 GMT -5
You know that you got ferrets, right hon? You will definitely be having some unneeded freakouts as you go along, haha. The little stinkers LIVE to give us mini heart attacks. I haven't personally shopped on MPC (My Pet Carnivore), my preference for an online raw provider would be Hare Today, but many of the members use MPC, so no issues there. Grinds which are said to be "whole ground animal" will be balanced, so that is fine. I get squirrelly over the "organ mixes" myself though, they're not always balanced. I have no issues with ordering the organs themselves from a raw provider or store, and then as for myself, I go blending them into a puree at home, lol. I do this specifically for my bunch so I can be sure the little cretins don't go stashing their organs and will get in the necessary amount their diet calls for. I'm going to assume, the grinds you get off MPC will be to introduce the new proteins at first and then move along to offering actual pieces of the protein as they get used to it? How do you currently offer your heart and organ meals? Same as the menu above where you do 1 meal heart, 1 meal organs, and 1 meal of heart+organs? Any issues in getting them to eat those? A deep freezer is a great idea.. I have to currently up-size the 7cu ft one we bought, since the kitty is now also eating raw and I have to store more, and need somewhere to store OUR food too, lol. But it definitely helps your budget if you can bulk order, or buy a lot when things are on special, just takes a bit out of your day to get it all prepped and put away in the correct portions, but it works like a dream afterwards. Grab from freezer, thaw, pop in bowl or wherever and done.
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lycorisousa
Junior Member
Raw and Whole Prey Feeder
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Post by lycorisousa on Jan 17, 2018 17:54:56 GMT -5
You know that you got ferrets, right hon? You will definitely be having some unneeded freakouts as you go along, haha. The little stinkers LIVE to give us mini heart attacks. I haven't personally shopped on MPC (My Pet Carnivore), my preference for an online raw provider would be Hare Today, but many of the members use MPC, so no issues there. Grinds which are said to be "whole ground animal" will be balanced, so that is fine. I get squirrelly over the "organ mixes" myself though, they're not always balanced. I have no issues with ordering the organs themselves from a raw provider or store, and then as for myself, I go blending them into a puree at home, lol. I do this specifically for my bunch so I can be sure the little cretins don't go stashing their organs and will get in the necessary amount their diet calls for. I'm going to assume, the grinds you get off MPC will be to introduce the new proteins at first and then move along to offering actual pieces of the protein as they get used to it? How do you currently offer your heart and organ meals? Same as the menu above where you do 1 meal heart, 1 meal organs, and 1 meal of heart+organs? Any issues in getting them to eat those? A deep freezer is a great idea.. I have to currently up-size the 7cu ft one we bought, since the kitty is now also eating raw and I have to store more, and need somewhere to store OUR food too, lol. But it definitely helps your budget if you can bulk order, or buy a lot when things are on special, just takes a bit out of your day to get it all prepped and put away in the correct portions, but it works like a dream afterwards. Grab from freezer, thaw, pop in bowl or wherever and done. They live to give me heart attacks, it's horrible. Roommate calls me a helicopter mom because of it. Yea I'm a little iffy with the organ grind because I am afraid of the balancing. That would be the case with full grinds because I would like for them to continue with chunks to help their teeth. Right now it's what the menu had. their mice meal they got a solo helping of heart which all was ate then one meal with it mixed in which about 1oz remained then the last organ meal only had kidney and liver. I had to mix salmon oil into that last one to get them to even look at it. Those I do grind just to make sure one isn't eating all of one certain organ. I had their food thawed last night and my room mate grabbed what she believed was steak meat for them from the freezer. I asked her where the bag came from she didn't noticed their food was already thawed in the fridge for them but the bag was labeled heart. They get just heart tonight and I managed to make it out of the house so hopefully the pet stores are opened.i was looking at the full prey also with hare today
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Post by LindaM on Jan 17, 2018 18:43:39 GMT -5
That's great news to hear. Progressing them from grinds and onto the actual chunks and specifically bone-in chunks are definitely going to be so much better for their teeth. Considering they are eating bones but mashed up, it will likely be easier to introduce new proteins as a grind for now and move onto chunks and bigger pieces of bone-in from there. And there's nothing wrong with continuing to feed organs as a grind, especially in a situation with more than one ferret, lol.
As your girls are getting used to eating bones, and build up their jaw strength, you can start bashing up the bones less and less too. Some items do end up needing some bashing though even later on, like turkey thighs and turkey necks I find.
Let me know when you get some other proteins and we can start seeing about getting them incorporated into your menu. If you get whole prey or whole grinds, we'll use the chart to balance it out.
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