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Post by Deleted on Dec 8, 2012 0:55:54 GMT -5
Tonights meal was diced chick hearts, liver, chicken and egg mixed together. So a the full chicken experience. ;D
Loki made a MAD dash for that bowl as soon as he realized there was egg involved. It is his absolute favorite.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 8, 2012 9:58:14 GMT -5
;D That's great! Some of mine enjoy egg a lot. It sounds like you ferrets are really embracing the change. Keep in mind their poops on organs will be runny if there isn't any bone or eggshell in there to help firm it. (or pumpkin)
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Post by Deleted on Dec 9, 2012 11:19:40 GMT -5
Last night's meal was chicken liver, gizzards, beef pieces, chicken pieces, an egg, and ground up eggshell. Also had some tiny bits of bone in there that I cut up with a knife.
As of right now, they've eaten about half of what I gave them. Their poop is consistent and activity levels fine. Today, they're going to be able to free roam all day (I'm home writing a paper) so I'll be able to monitor their energy levels pretty well.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 9, 2012 16:11:57 GMT -5
Excellent! About how big would you say the pieces of meat are? Dime sized, quarter sized etc? Did they eat any of the bone slivers?
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Post by Deleted on Dec 9, 2012 16:18:10 GMT -5
So far they're down to 1/4th of their meal from last night. I've seen Loki return to the cage to snack two times so far. ;D So it seems they're adapting well to the slivers and chunks of organs. I'm quite proud of them.
I still need to get their weight today but every time I go on a "paper break" they've bunked down somewhere fast asleep and I don't want to disturb them! Loki is in a clothes drawer and Dexter is in his favorite hammock. They've been allowed to free roam for 7 hours so far today and have been alternating between insanity and power naps. ;D
I may also be going crazy but it looks like Loki is starting to lose a little bit of his yellow. It was all over his back/rump but now seems confined to a strip going up his back (it was like this on kibble as well). I have not had the chance to get a whiff of their smell yet but their room is a bit less smelly (of course, I just deep cleaned their cage yesterday so I suppose that accounts for that!)
Would you suggest I keep feeding just chunks and slivers? Or should I more soupie and stick chunks/slivers in that?
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Post by Deleted on Dec 9, 2012 16:21:31 GMT -5
They're nickle sized bits. Judging by what is left in the bowl, they haven't been discriminating against anything in particular. I don't see any of the small bone chunks left - looks like they got those. I gave a slightly larger bone as well last night and that is currently in the very bottom level of their cage (food bowl is on the top-most shelf of the FN) with chew marks on the ends and sides.
It looks like they decimated all bits of chicken, beef, and liver. I see mostly chicken gizzards left in the bowl right now.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 10, 2012 8:29:25 GMT -5
If you are able to see each ferret eat and know they are eating bones, organs and muscle meats when offered you could probably skip putting out more soup. This is obviously tricky to do unless you can catch them all eating at meal time. If this is not doable, I'd go around offering them a treat of all 3 types- meat, organ, bone to make sure they are willing to accept them all. You just want to make sure they will eat it all and not get deficiencies in the future if say, they hate organs.
Watching their poop closely will give you a good idea on how their choice in eating is going. Someone eating lots of organs or muscle meat with lite bone will have runny stools, possibly even tarry if there was heart in there. Ferrets eating lots of bone but little else will have dry stools that can be grey or greenish looking and it crumbles kind of like chalk.
I have several ferrets that will eat heart for instance, but Murder loves it a lot and so he will take the whole pile and stash it somewhere and snack on it without sharing. So if I want to feed my ferrets heart, I have to offer nothing but heart for the meal to make sure they all go after his pile and eat or they'd not get any otherwise. They'd just eat whatever else was available rather than arguing with him over the heart. So over time you'll want to watch for behavior like this where someone may be hogging something they like.
When in doubt if you are worried they aren't getting enough of something, offer only one thing for a meal. So the morning meal is heart, the night meal is a bone in meat, the next day they get another bone in meal and a muscle meat one. If that's all they have available to them it will ensure they are getting enough. (so long as they'll eat it.)
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Post by Deleted on Dec 10, 2012 10:05:44 GMT -5
It looks like the fuzzlets answered the question for me: last night's meal was very similar to the one before except I added more small bones, chicken, and beef (I cut down the amount of organs). It was *not* well received. Looks like they didn't even touch it. If no effort it made to eat it I'll be running to the store tonight for soupie ingredients and starting the adding-chunks thing over, I guess. Of course they could have just been too tired to eat - they played literally all day yesterday and are currently passed out.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 10, 2012 12:30:19 GMT -5
LOL wouldn't be the first time I've seen a weasel too tired to even eat. ;D
I would say try and back of just a little to what meal you know they ate last and stick with that for a few days and see how they do. If they are still happily eating, try again what you fed last night that they may have rejected. It could be that they didn't like the mix of stuff or pieces were too big, or their tummies maybe were upset for some reason. (Artemis is the king of the sensitive stomach in my house). You can always rule things out little at a time.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 10, 2012 15:42:54 GMT -5
Thank you!
Also I was able to grab some weights last night.
Loki 2.6lbs (up from 2.5) Dexter 2.3lbs (down from 2.4)
Should I be worried about Dexter's .1 weight loss? He s certainly thinner than when I first adopted him (thought that *may* be a good thing - he was super chunky) ;D
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Post by Deleted on Dec 10, 2012 17:26:04 GMT -5
It's generally nothing to be concerned about unless they are rapidly losing weight in a short period of time and generally they will have other symptoms if it's an illness such as poor appetite, lethargy or poor stools. If he's eating well, active as usual and everything looks good out of the back door I wouldn't worry.
Ferrets switching to raw will actually lose weight at first often times. What happens is the kibble bulks them up fatter than they should be due to the unnecessary carbs they cannot use. Think of it as you eating a regular diet of Mac Donald's.
Now say you start in on a diet with properly balanced meals with no excess beyond what you could use- healthy veggies, meats and an appropriate amount of dairy, grains, fats and carbs. You'd start shedding pounds. Your furkids are doing the same right now- they are getting rid of the extra flab. After a bit of purging this way, they will start to regain weight, but this weight will be muscle now instead of fat unless they are over eating severely. They may put on a bit of pudge since it's winter, but it should drop back off in the spring.
As an example, my Murder was 3.7 lbs on kibble and definitely chubby. He dropped significantly in weight for a while once we switched (was starting to look like a wraith lol). Now he has regained weight as mostly muscle, and it at 3.3 lbs as of last week. He is now much more active and engaging since the switch, he no longer lazes about and he actively engages in play when he wouldn't have before.
I judge weight for body frame based on the following-
Look at the ferret. Can you see their hip bones? Can you see their rib or back bones (vertebrae)?
If you can see ribs or back bones, your ferret is underweight and needs immediate attention. If you can see the hips kind of "jutting" out when they are sitting, you're fine.
Feel your ferret. If you cannot feel ribs or any other bones, your ferret is overweight. You probably can see this clearly enough with the naked eye though, they tend to be quite round.
With a healthy ferret you can just barely feel the ribs and back through the fat/muscle/fur.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 10, 2012 19:01:03 GMT -5
No ribs or back bones but I can see his hips while he is sitting which is why I was concerned.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 10, 2012 22:46:51 GMT -5
Mine are all like that sans the fattest guy. It shouldn't be a problem so long as he doesn't look skeletal. Just keep an eye on him in case it's symptomatic of something else.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 11, 2012 14:43:13 GMT -5
Last night I made the chunks smaller (dime-sized) and replaced the beef with pork. I fed a total of 6oz and everything was eaten. Will go up to 7.5oz tonight.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 11, 2012 18:50:54 GMT -5
Was it their first time eating beef that night?
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