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Post by miamiferret2 on Jun 13, 2013 19:58:51 GMT -5
80% is good! Making progress. Trim her nails (not too short - don't cut the blood vein). That might help a little with the climbing. Unfortunately I doubt it will do much. Some ferrets are just master climbers and escape artists.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 13, 2013 23:19:47 GMT -5
We have success! The little monsters are eating full soup and both SUCKING it down might I add. One moment there is food and a few minutes later someone has licked the bowl CLEAN YAY!!!!
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Post by miamiferret2 on Jun 14, 2013 7:06:47 GMT -5
Excellent! Now, the next step is to slowly make the soup meat more chunky by adding a little less water and making it a courser grind. It is prob the consistency /texture of yogurt right now right? If your blender is not easy to control just add TINY slivers of muscle meat into the soup. Sneak them in. Tiny slivers like the thickness of a finger nail. Then gradually increase them in size. We want to get them chewing on meat. For now keep using same recipe for the raw mush. same amounts of everything.
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Post by miamiferret2 on Jun 14, 2013 7:07:57 GMT -5
You are doing great.
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Post by miamiferret2 on Jun 14, 2013 7:13:02 GMT -5
BTW if they are already sucking down that raw mush, I would go ahead and remove kibble entirely. Feed them twice a day. 12 hours apart. Leave out at least 3 ounces per ferret so they have enough to eat in between feedings. If the meat goes bad they don't eat it. We have to gauge how much they are eating. If you are seeing that they did not finish everything after 12 hrs and you had to throw some out, just leave out a little less next time. They tend to eat more during winter months. Summer is when their weight drops.
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Post by miamiferret2 on Jun 14, 2013 7:17:17 GMT -5
What I meant to write is don't worry about leaving the raw meat out because if meat goes bad ferrets won't eat it. They know.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 14, 2013 11:46:56 GMT -5
Im so excited I need to make more mush tonight and add the hearts. I didnt get a chance over the weekend since I was sick. The consistency is like a runny yogurt to a thicker one. Depends on how much water i add to thaw the cube. I have already taken away the kibble. They never had kibble in their cage full time because they would dig it out and it would all be wasted. So we made a big bowl of kibblemush and changed it twice a day so they alway had food. Last night I gave them on and it was all gone. So i gave them two more bowls so that they each had one, at times they are kind of pigs and dont share lol ,I think they literally suck it down with in a few hours max. Is that ok ? Arent they always suppose to have food ? Sp proud of my little fuzzies <3 thank you so much btw
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Post by miamiferret2 on Jun 14, 2013 21:16:15 GMT -5
They are prob eating more because they are transitioning. Do you have a kitchen scale? I think one cube is approx 1 oz. So depending on how big your ferrets are (small girls can eat as little as 1.5 oz a day) they will each eat prob 2-4 oz a day. I always leave dry freeze dried raw (dry) in Sonnys bowl. It won't go bad. I use stella & chewys canine lamb and beef. I get them at www.caseyshiddenpantry.com. I rip them up into little pieces about 3/4 inch big. He rarely eats between his two main meals though. Two patties last like 2 weeks in his bowl. You can start adding in other proteins too. Continue using chicken hearts and livers as those are easiest organs to find. If you can find beef kidney add 2 oz of that per week to their food. New proteins should be mixed up just like you did the chicken. 8 oz of muscle meat, 1 chicken liver, add 3-4 chicken hearts, 1/2 teaspoon of eggshell powder or bone meal. When introducing new proteins you do it slowly exactly how you switched them onto raw until they get used to the taste. Mix new protein in with their chicken mush. Ferrets need a minimum of 3 proteins. More than that is ideal but 3 is minimum. I rotate turkey, beef, lamb, chicken, duck, venison, and pork.
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Post by miamiferret2 on Jun 14, 2013 21:19:07 GMT -5
My ferret usually gobbles down all of his food in one sitting and on soups they eat more like greedy pigs.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 17, 2013 11:07:21 GMT -5
Our's are definitly greed little pigs when you put their mush down.... its is gone in 5 minutes. I gave them some raw pieces in it a few times over the weekend. They did ok with it. I made a new batch of chicken but we now have a HUGE beef heart, beef ribs that we can donate and a chicken neck
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Post by Deleted on Jun 17, 2013 18:47:26 GMT -5
Hi Xio,
I'm Danny, Natacha's bf. Thank you so much for helping us out and getting them on a better diet. I will be coming on here as well to report back but Natacha has everything pretty much covered for now.
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Post by miamiferret2 on Jun 17, 2013 19:18:56 GMT -5
Hello Danny nice to meet you. Beef ribs are too big for ferrets to break up. But you can strip the meat off for them. Just dice up really small like a mince. My ferret eats beef but sometimes it is too rich for them. It can be like a once a week meal. They can handle small bones from chickens and other poultry. Cornish game hens, duck, quail. Keep increasing the size of the meat slivers slowly until you can get them eating chunks that are about as thick as your thumb. Then we will move them onto chicken wings, necks, etc. They need to work up their jaw strength to be able to eat bones. We do that by making them chewing in the slivers of meat and eventually chunks. See if you can find chicken gizzards at the grocery store. They are usually dirt cheap. with the organs and heart just make it like a course chop at first then slivers. If you are lucky your ferrets will eat organ meals all on their own. If you are like many other raw feeders , your ferrets will be stubborn and they won't eat whole organ meals. In that case, you will just have to disguise it in with muscle meat like you are doing now. What you can do is make organ cubes so you can add throughout the week. You have two ferrets so Take 5 oz of hearts, 4 oz of liver and 4 oz of another organ (try to get beef or pork kidneys those are easiest to find) Grind up all the organs and put into an ice cube tray. Then use all of the cubes within 7 days just add them to raw grinds.
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Post by miamiferret2 on Jun 17, 2013 19:19:48 GMT -5
You are doing really well. I think it is awesome that your significant other is also into the raw diet for ferrets.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 18, 2013 1:51:40 GMT -5
Awe thank you. He is amazing and wants the best for the little guys too. He, over the weekend made a basic, for now, "ferret highway" so they could run in our big room and us not have to worry. The play pen is under construction for now lol. Hmm ok beef is to rich got it. Poor guys lol no filet for them yet!
Should I hold off on the beef heart ? I can hopefully go sometime this week and look for the mentioned above organs. I actually think this weeks organ mush was made from gizzards! I cooked a bird and pulled out the neck and some other organs and figured one was a heart, a liver and gawd knows what the third one was but i tossed that in with some thighs and the duck soup. I froze the neck for later.
They are happily sucking down the organ mush. We have to still get the ice cube trays though. Right now we are guesstimating because I bought these retarded apple shaped ice cube trays .... I didnt know fuzzies would eat so much :/
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Post by miamiferret2 on Jun 18, 2013 17:32:18 GMT -5
Oh you can feed beef. I feed it to my ferret. Just some of them have issues with beef. Sure you can use beef hearts, liver, kidneys and muscle meat. Just remember to add 1/2 tsp of bone meal or eggshell to every 8 oz of meat Until we get them eating poultry bones we have to keep adding that calcium in.
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