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Post by redvsblue on Feb 26, 2023 11:09:09 GMT -5
We have had our boys, Church and Caboose, on raw soups (ground chicken and Know Better powder) since like 2/10/23 (that's at least the start day of them being almost full transitioned from kibble to raw soup) and they're still having some weird poops. They can range between like ... solid but with brown liquid and yellowish balls to just straight watery green poops.
Now, we do have some issues with ferret coronavirus and helicobacter (they were cleared for the coronavirus, but they hadn't been necessarily clear for the helicobacter, our vet wanted us to try and switch them from kibble to raw food to see if it would fix their gut issues so we are just still in the transition phase and we haven't taken them back to the vet yet since we haven't been on this journey very long), so the green watery poop could have to do with that, but I don't know, I can't be certain.
But I just wanted to know:
How long should we expect to see these weird poops? Like when will they start being "normal"? Or are we missing something in their diet? Is ground chicken and Know Better not enough? Should we be adding more stuff in it or something? We also haven't tried other meats because we wanted them to get to know that the chicken soup was food first before trying to introduce more meats, is that what we should be doing?
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Post by Corvidophile on Feb 27, 2023 20:49:32 GMT -5
Are the different poop types coming from different ferrets, or are they both producing such a range? In either case, it’s too long. They should be over it by now, or at the very least producing the same type of poop day after day if they’re eating the same food day after day, even if that poop is not ideal. Maybe one or both of them has a gut infection going on still. You can try overpowering bad bacteria with good bacteria at home by using probiotics. You don’t have to buy pet specific probiotics, but they help more quickly as it’s closer to what they’d have in their tracts. Even human probiotics will help though. You want a range of eubacteria in a powder filled capsule that you can open, dump onto their food, and mix in. Give half a capsule each meal. Nothing bad happens if you overdose on probiotics, it just doesn’t get better faster.
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Post by redvsblue on Feb 28, 2023 14:05:27 GMT -5
They are both having these weird poops. Man ... I know they have always had some weird issues but we thought that switching would help ... we do give them bene-bac every 3 days in their food, and we are going to start doing Pepto again twice a day to help their bellies. Should we try to go ahead and switch them to grinds? Maybe this isn't balanced enough?
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Post by Corvidophile on Feb 28, 2023 14:15:42 GMT -5
It’s not that it’s not balanced enough, it might be a protein digestion issue. There’s an irritation happening for some reason. When a food isn’t balanced enough, depending on what the imbalance is, you’ll see things develop over time like osteoporosis (not enough bone), or blindness and heart weakness (not enough taurine), weight loss despite eating (not enough fat), balding (too much egg white), weakness all over and low iron and red blood cell count (not enough liver), to name some that can go wrong off the top of my head. Poops can be excellent despite having an imbalanced diet. Weird poops while already giving them eubacteria is concerning. They might not have fully defeated the coronavirus yet. They might even be allergic to beef or chicken, or egg.
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Post by unclejoe on Feb 28, 2023 18:09:30 GMT -5
I would hold off on the pepto. While it can be used short –term, it should not be used long-term. There are alternatives that are safe for ferrets, like Sucralfate but that is a script. Pepto contains salicylates. Both coat the guts and delay absorption of nutrients. It needs to be given at last an hour before feeding. I would give the diet transition more time. Tryground turkey. My ferrets preferred that over ground chicken.
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Post by redvsblue on Mar 1, 2023 13:23:28 GMT -5
It’s not that it’s not balanced enough, it might be a protein digestion issue. There’s an irritation happening for some reason. When a food isn’t balanced enough, depending on what the imbalance is, you’ll see things develop over time like osteoporosis (not enough bone), or blindness and heart weakness (not enough taurine), weight loss despite eating (not enough fat), balding (too much egg white), weakness all over and low iron and red blood cell count (not enough liver), to name some that can go wrong off the top of my head. Poops can be excellent despite having an imbalanced diet. Weird poops while already giving them eubacteria is concerning. They might not have fully defeated the coronavirus yet. They might even be allergic to beef or chicken, or egg. Ugh ... I'm just getting so freaked out. They're acting totally normal, there's no real issues other than their poop being weird. They were cleared of the coronavirus but not of the helicobacter so maybe that's what's doing it? |
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Post by redvsblue on Mar 1, 2023 13:25:45 GMT -5
I would hold off on the pepto. While it can be used short –term, it should not be used long-term. There are alternatives that are safe for ferrets, like Sucralfate but that is a script. Pepto contains salicylates. Both coat the guts and delay absorption of nutrients. It needs to be given at last an hour before feeding. I would give the diet transition more time. Tryground turkey. My ferrets preferred that over ground chicken. We tried ground turkey at first, but they weren't really about it so we decided to try chicken and that seemed to work. But for dinner tonight I'll give them the turkey because it's probably best for us to start introducing new meats, right? Should we stop the pepto all together? We would also give them the pepto after they ate, rather than before. We also bought some chicken liver, do y'all think I should try giving them that? I just want to do everything we can to help ... |
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Post by abbeytheferret6 on Mar 2, 2023 9:01:18 GMT -5
Are your ferrets on the one for cats? If you give pure liver they will have runny stools. That is why when we give a heart meal or a liver and an organ mixture, we give a bone meal before and after it. I see there is liver and calcium in the cat mixture and there is taurine. Taurine is important and the organ. Because i never did anything but frankenprey--- and then finally the frankenprey with alternative meals(mice and asf rats), I would not know how to help you. Have you studied this? It may seem overwhelming but it is a must to know. holisticferretforum.com/natural-diet/. Mine did have bacteria overload but your vet would see the bad guys under the microscope. It is very smelly with diarrhea. Like when I opened the door to their room it would hit you in the face. They were put on antibiotics and I continued with the frankenprey diet. If you have an Asian store nearby they generally always have frozen quail (variety). |
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Post by redvsblue on Mar 2, 2023 9:42:12 GMT -5
Are your ferrets on the one for cats? For the Know Better? Yeah, it's the chicken flavor. |
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Post by abbeytheferret6 on Mar 2, 2023 11:23:25 GMT -5
Thought i would share this with you if you want to try leaving this in their cage overnite--if they have not gotten to the bone eating stage yet. It is the section of the chicken wing that is in between the drumette and the wing tip. I cut down the middle of the two bones. Of course u can leave the tip with them too.  |
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Post by abbeytheferret6 on Mar 2, 2023 11:24:32 GMT -5
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Post by redvsblue on Mar 5, 2023 10:59:57 GMT -5
Thought i would share this with you if you want to try leaving this in their cage overnite--if they have not gotten to the bone eating stage yet. It is the section of the chicken wing that is in between the drumette and the wing tip. I cut down the middle of the two bones. Of course u can leave the tip with them too. Thank you! They haven't even really gotten past the soup stage ... I feel like I'm doing this all wrong ... |
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Post by abbeytheferret6 on Mar 8, 2023 7:17:50 GMT -5
I felt that I would not be able to transition my ferrets too. My Phoebe loved soupies and when I started mixing the little chips of meat in --- I could not believe she left all the chips and licked up all the soup. Yes there was a little dish of chips laying there. This continued several times. I just made those chips smaller and less and less soup. She really transitioned herself to bone after she started eating meat chunks. She happened to find some jerky laying under a drawer and just took to bone after that. With my Buddy, I regretted throwing the kibble away a bit too soon because it was hard to transition him to soupies. The easiest are truly the babies as the forum says. She enjoyed gnawing on the meaty bones.  |
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Post by redvsblue on Mar 9, 2023 10:47:08 GMT -5
I felt that I would not be able to transition my ferrets too. My Phoebe loved soupies and when I started mixing the little chips of meat in --- I could not believe she left all the chips and licked up all the soup. Yes there was a little dish of chips laying there. This continued several times. I just made those chips smaller and less and less soup. She really transitioned herself to bone after she started eating meat chunks. She happened to find some jerky laying under a drawer and just took to bone after that. With my Buddy, I regretted throwing the kibble away a bit too soon because it was hard to transition him to soupies. The easiest are truly the babies as the forum says. She enjoyed gnawing on the meaty bones. Yeah ... All I want is the best for our boys and I'm just so worried about them. |
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