Any diet / lifestyle changes as ferrets age?

[hammahtime]

Hey all, my ferrt, Ham, is turning 6 this year!  She's healthy, bouncing around and showing no sign of slowing down. Just a few gray strands starting on her back end, otherwise she's indistinguishable from a 3 year old.

I'm looking for tips, advice, and thoughts on caring for older ferrets. 

Diet?   She's been on frankenprey for ~4 years.  Fed chicken, rabbit, duck, beef, lamb, pork. Taurine. Bone meal because she refuses to eat bones. And very occasional fish oil.  Are there any changes or additions to nutrition I should make?  Also open to tips on getting her to eat bones and larger meat chunks (tried before when we first switched to raw, open to trying again)

Lifestyle?   She's free-roam in my apartment.  Expecting more frequent poops, making sure she doesn't continue to toss herself down heights, making things more easily accessible.. These sorts of things.

(I know this is a diet thread, and my question encompasses a bit more than just diet, hopefully this is alright.)

[abbeytheferret6]

Glad to hear your little one is healthy.

I would just start including meaty bones/chunks each time you feed. If that was all she had to munch on during the day-- I bet she would come around:)

My male refused to eat mice at first, but I just kept putting them before him--and one day he surprised me.

[Heather]

Bone meal is not really sufficient to balance her diet. I would be adding some bone in meats, she needs this as much as she did as a kit. Take a cleaver and smash up some bone...I start my kits on chicken and rabbit ribs. Smash them up a bit then chop up with their regular meats
ciao

[raynebc]

Has she tried bone in meat from animals who have really soft/small bones to begin with (ie. frogs, cornish game hen, quail)?

[hammahtime]

I've tried game hen and quail before. She'll eat the meats I get for her and leave the bone.

I always chop up the bones. Tried, ranging from just splitting open bones length-wise to hopefully lick the marrow, to smashed tiny pieces still attached to the meat. Wing tips, ribs, necks, femurs, tibias, etc. No luck.

Just remembered when she gave me attitude after a few meals of eating around all the bone. She got "fed up", pushed this chunk of meat&bone she was working on off her plate, gave me this look and just left half her meal uneatten haha. I'll start doing bones every meal again though to familiarize her.


How long do you leave meat chunks out for?

[abbeytheferret6]

How long do you leave meat chunks out for?

Read more: holisticferret60.proboards.com/thread/25170/any-diet-lifestyle-changes-ferrets#ixzz5kz89EIsG


I leave chunks of meat as well as meaty bones out until next meal time. Mine eat breakfast about 7:30 am and supper about 4:30 pm. What is left over from supper, I clear up next morning(unless it gets stashed which happens a lot with my free roamers). Try not to get discouraged because of ferret turning down things. If it is a regular meat they eat, when hungry,she will attempt to eat it(guessing here LOL).


This was info from my mentor 

Raw meat is safe for ferrets to eat. A ferret’s digestive tract is very short and bacteria doesn't have enough time to set up camp in there. And, surprisingly, raw food can be safely left out for several hours at a time, depending on the ambient temperature:

“Soups” - 6-8 hours (for soup recipe, see below)

Grinds - 8-12 hours

Chunks - 10-24 hours depending on the size (larger chunks last longer)

Bone-in meats - 12-24 hours, again depending on the size

Whole prey - up to 48 hours





Read more: holisticferret60.proboards.com/thread/16051/abbeytheferret6s-switching-thread-abbylee22#ixzz5kz8Nq7L2