Preparing to make the transition to commercial grinds

[brittanyb]

I've reached a point of stability both financially and with my work/school routine, so I am ready to get serious about transitioning my ferrets from their Wysong kibble to whole prey commercial grinds. I'm currently doing careful research and working my way through all of the info here on the forum.

At this point I think that whole prey grinds are the way to go for me and my ferrets. I've heard very good things about My Pet Carnivore, except that it's on the expensive side. Does anyone have any experience ordering from this company, and if so, how much would you estimate that you spend per month? How much meat do you typically need to order for the month? I have 3 ferrets, two males and a female (all about 2 years old).

I'm also open to any other advice regarding commerical grinds and raw feeding in general (or links to any posts/articles that were particularly helpful to you in your own transition). Thank you!

[PatienceTheVirtue]

Hi! I ordered MPC for the first time a month ago. I got 5 pounds of ground beef, 2 pounds of beef spleen, 10 pounds of ground chicken, 4 pounds of chicken hearts, 2 pounds of chicken liver, 2 pounds of duck, 6 pounds of pork, 2 pounds of mutton, and an 18 pack of duck necks.
My cats have secretly stolen about a pound of the hearts, 5 duck necks, and a bit of various grinds. (They're masters at getting it from where I'm defrosting it) The only thing I'm out of is duck, one tub of pork, and one 5 pound tub of chicken. I mixed the hearts with the spleen and liver, with some heart left over because of the cat incident and because the mutton is missing an extra organ (couldn't get the right ratio after losing bits of spleen and heart to those problems). The mutton is getting low as well. It cost $174.48 for all of it and it looks like it'll last 2-3 months for 3 ferrets. I give bone in meals (chicken wings from the grocery store or the chicken necks) for 3 meals (or 1.5 days worth), the organ mix for 1 meal (or .5 days worth) and 5 days a week (aka 10 meals) I will do whole grinds. The chicken, pork, and beef are their staples, with the duck or mutton added as an extra protein (duck neck helps with this too even though the ground duck is gone). I feed them 3-4 ounces each a day, which is 9-12 ounces total (I don't get too picky with it). They don't like the pork or mutton as much (the mutton has tripe) so they get a little less of that versus their favorites of chicken or duck, and of their red meat of beef.

Not sure if this helps too much, but good luck!

[brittanyb]

That was very helpful, thank you! I will most likely stick to the whole prey grinds as that seems to take the guesswork out of making sure their diets are properly balanced. Of course I still have a lot of research to do before I decide on anything for sure. Thanks again for sharing your experience with MPC!

[PatienceTheVirtue]

Oct 15, 2020 9:49:32 GMT -5 brittanyb said:

That was very helpful, thank you! I will most likely stick to the whole prey grinds as that seems to take the guesswork out of making sure their diets are properly balanced. Of course I still have a lot of research to do before I decide on anything for sure. Thanks again for sharing your experience with MPC!

Just note that some grinds aren't actually whole grinds. They do have the 80/10/10 ratio but will not always have a secondary organ, such as with the beaver or mutton grinds. The chicken, pork, beef, and duck are the ones I can vouch for. You'll have to email if you want to know for sure outside of those because it's not advertised with ingredients, you only find out after they're shipped to you.

Good luck!

[brittanyb]

Thanks for the tip! I will definitely email the company before ordering anything.