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Post by miamiferret2 on Jun 22, 2013 20:24:16 GMT -5
Awesome! How big are the meat slivers they are eating?
Once you get them eating chunks about as thick as your thumb, start introducing bone in meats. Chicken wing tips are good too start.
If they eat wing tips then see if they will eat the larger pieces.
Buy chicken wings, put a few in a ziplock, bash them up with a hammer or mallet so you break the bones. Then take scissors or a knife and slice up the wings into small chunks that are about same size as meat chunks that they eat. That is how you trick them into eating bone. Maybe you will get lucky and they will be good bone eaters. My ferret is not good with that. But he has jaw issues.
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Post by miamiferret2 on Jun 22, 2013 20:24:24 GMT -5
Awesome! How big are the meat slivers they are eating?
Once you get them eating chunks about as thick as your thumb, start introducing bone in meats. Chicken wing tips are good too start.
If they eat wing tips then see if they will eat the larger pieces.
Buy chicken wings, put a few in a ziplock, bash them up with a hammer or mallet so you break the bones. Then take scissors or a knife and slice up the wings into small chunks that are about same size as meat chunks that they eat. That is how you trick them into eating bone. Maybe you will get lucky and they will be good bone eaters. My ferret is not good with that. But he has jaw issues.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 23, 2013 18:52:06 GMT -5
The meat slivers are almost the size of my thumb and they get about 3-4 per bowl.
Today we noticed that Blaze had a little bit of diarrhea not sure if it is because the soup mix is gone or not.
We will start with the wing tips and see how they are with them and let you know soon. This morning they ate everything however, sometimes they will leave a few meat slivers after eating up the mush. Later on we will find them all gone. Makes me wonder if we should try just giving them slivers without mush.
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Post by miamiferret2 on Jun 23, 2013 20:23:14 GMT -5
Yes it bc the soup had the calcium in it. If you see loose stools that means they aren't getting enough bone (calcium). Right now the calcium they get is from eggshell powder or bone meal powder. Those would firm up the stool. But muscle meat only will give them the runs.
With meat slivers /chunks, until they take to eating bones , keep adding the bone meal powder or eggshells to the slivers or chunks. 1/2 tsp per every 8 oz. Try to just sprinkle it onto the meat chunks.
I would bash up a whole chicken wing. Bust up the bones then slice into chunks. See if they eat the bone. Sounds like they might.
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Post by miamiferret2 on Jun 23, 2013 20:26:02 GMT -5
Very important to make sure that they get calcium. We should be able to get them transitioned to bones if they are eating chunks.
Calcium deficiencies can develop. So if they are stubborn with the bones at first just keep using eggshell or bone meal.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 24, 2013 13:03:17 GMT -5
Looks like they are being picky with the bones I heard some crunching last night but looks like they never finished it all and left a bunch over. We will be getting Bone Meal for them soon but in the mean time we will be using the Duk soup again because we do not have enough eggshells for the mixture. Last thing we want is for them to be sick or have any deficiencies.
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Post by miamiferret2 on Jun 24, 2013 22:31:42 GMT -5
Duk soup has calcium in it?
Vitamin Shoppe should sell bone meal powder.
Was she adding 1/2 tsp of eggshell per every 8 oz of meat with the soup?
It is a pain to grind up eggshell.
They sell one called Eggshellent calcium for dogs.
You can also use Wysong Call of the Wild
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Post by miamiferret2 on Jun 24, 2013 22:55:37 GMT -5
it sucks when your ferrets aren't eating bone and you need to add calcium. I like to use commercial raw grinds for that reason. that way i know that he is getting the calcium he needs. i always keep either natures variety instinct (frozen raw medallions) and Stella & Chewys freeze dried raw in the house. i also use Rad Cat and Bravo balance blends. those have ground bone in them and are already balanced. stella & chewys comes in very handy if you are traveling, have someone pet sitting, or you have to leave them at the vet's overnight. other people may not feed your ferrets a mouse or a frankenprey meal. but they would feed freeze dried raw. the stella and chewys you just have to crumble it up and add warm water to it. my ferret loves Duck Duck Goose. he also eats Dandy Lamb and Beef (dry). the duck duck goose if i give that to him i crumble it up with my fingers and i add water. some ferrets are not so great about eating their bones so you have to stay on top of it. commercial raw grinds come in handy for that. the bones are already ground up. only problem when they don't eat bone on their own is that you have to brush their teeth a few times a week. 4 days out of the week, they have to eat bone in meats. then 2 days out of the week they can eat just muscle meat (one of these meals MUST be heart which is a muscle- each ferret gets about 2 oz of heart each week). then one day each week they can get organs (2 oz of liver and 2 oz of kidney or whatever other you can find). of course, some people find that their ferrets will not just eat their organ meals straight out so they have to blend them into their meals throughout the week to disguise it. here is a good frankenprey menu that sherry posted a while back. it is good to print out and put on your refrigerator. if you follow this, you will feed a balanced raw diet!: Monday am: edible bone Monday pm: edible bone Tuesday am: edible bone Tuesday pm: muscle meat Wednesday am: edible bone Wednesday pm: heart Thursday am: edible bone Thursday pm: edible bone Friday am: edible bone Friday pm: muscle meat Saturday am: edible bone Saturday pm: muscle meat Sunday am: edible bone Sunday pm: liver/organ Edible bone: any bone-in chicken meat (wings, thighs, necks, legs, backs, ribs); whole quail; rabbit, turkey necks, turkey ribs, turkey wing tips. duck necks, duck ribs, and duck wing tips. pork button bones, pork rib ends. cornish game hen (any bone from the cornish game hen). or any commercial frozen raw grinds with 10% to 15% ground bone and less than 5% plant/veg matter. or any freeze dried raw grinds with 10%-15% ground bone and less than 5% plant/veg matter. Muscle meat: any heart meat. chicken(including gizzard), turkey, duck, lamb, goat, beef, CGH, venison, elk, basically any meat without bone. Organ meat: Liver, kidney, thymus, pancreas, reproductive organs, lung, brain, snout, basically any part of the body that secretes. here are some links to commercial raw grinds that are suitable for ferrets: www.stellaandchewys.com/index.php (i use the canine one for my ferret-- they add taurine to the canine version too and it is less than 5% plant/veg matter) www.radfood.com/ (my ferret LOVES Rad Cat!) www.bravorawdiet.com/index.html (my dog eats Bravo more. be sure to get the Balance blends if you buy this one. if you can only find the blends, make sure they have meat bones and organs. you would have to add raw hearts or taurine to their meat if they don't have hearts. www.naturesvariety.com/InstinctRaw/cat/all (most ferrets like the chicken and duck-- stick with the frozen raw only) |
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Post by miamiferret2 on Jun 24, 2013 22:56:58 GMT -5
don't get discouraged with the chicken wings. keep trying. did they eat A LITTLE bit of bone at least?
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Post by Deleted on Jun 25, 2013 16:34:19 GMT -5
*sigh* my head just exploded. Good note they, well cinimini has eaten a little bone. Blaze im not sure Danny may have seen or heard him. We also found a gizzard under their bed. Is that normal to hide food lol ? Im going to check into those links.I want them to be health. I couldnt grind the eggs up because i havent had a chance to buy a morter. So i figured throwing them in the blender with everything would work. Yea.. not so much.#mommyfail The bits of egg went to the bottom. I went out last night and bought the Duk soup and added it to the mix of gizzards, thigh, wings and beef liver. I havent been home yet to check out their litter boxes.
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Post by miamiferret2 on Jun 25, 2013 19:51:14 GMT -5
You have to be as exact as possible with eggshell or bonemeal . Always 1/2 tsp for every 8 oz of meat.
Yes unfortunately raw fed ferrets love to stash meat.
Make them a feeding den. Take a cardboard box and cut a hole into it for a doorway.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 26, 2013 21:46:25 GMT -5
OK den box is made  When will we see these little ones gain some weight back ? :/ |
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Post by miamiferret2 on Jun 27, 2013 10:32:34 GMT -5
what are their weights now? have they lost alot since you last posted their weights on 6/21?
on 6/11 you posted that your male was 1500 g and the female was 850 g.
so on 6/21 they are 1179 g and 726 g.
i would watch them both to make sure they are they are eating adequate amounts. are they leaving left overs?
is your house really hot right now?
like i said, during summer, ferrets eat less and slim down.
i would say during the summer smaller girls can eat maybe 1 to 2 oz a day (if they are big girls then more than that and closer to what males would eat)
and boys 3-4 oz a day during summer.
weigh out their portions and make sure they eat. even if you have to put more out than they would require. portion control is trial and error. you will see that one day you may have too many left overs , so then next time give them a little less.
did you get the eggshells for their soup mix? i am concerned that by adding meat to the "duck soup" ( i assume it is the Marshall Farms powder) that we are throwing off the calcium phosphorous ration. that is, assuming that the duck soup has any calcium in it. to my understanding this is supposed to only be used for sick ferrets.
make sure when you make that soupy mixture that you add 1/2 tsp of the eggshell or bone meal powder per every 8 oz of meat. this has to be done regardless of whether you add some duck soup to it. whenever you add muscle meat (with no bone) to either kibble gruel or any pre-made powder like the duck soup, you are throwing off calcium to phosphorous ratio.
we do not want to create a calcium deficiency here. last thing you want is to have your ferrets have broken bones or have their teeth falling out. i don't know if you ever read about that big lawsuit that breeder Path Valley Farms had against a kibble manufacturer in the 90s but basically he lost like 1,000 ferrets because the kibble manufacturer did not have the right calcium to phosphorous ratio. his breeder ferrets teeth were falling out and kits were being born without skulls. he almost had to close down his ferretry.
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Post by miamiferret2 on Jun 27, 2013 10:36:40 GMT -5
summer weight loss is not very drastic. you should not feel ribs or anything.
but they do eat much less because of the heat.
are they still being very active? any drop in activity levels?
if they are eating their full rations daily, the weight loss you are seeing could be from the fact that you cut the carbs out of their diet, or that they have simply slimmed down for the summer.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 27, 2013 13:52:10 GMT -5
Wow, no never heard of that one, how sad! The bone meal is coming in today and I will add the right amount to the mixture or just make more I suppose and throw away the one already made. They are still active when we get them going. They have always slept a lot so that seems the same. They eat like little hogs. 99% of the time they eat everything that we have given them, except the bones lol. Our house is warm but not to hot. They have their check up tomorrow at the vets so we will have an exact weight on them and a check up luckily. I guess we are just worried. We have never had these little creature before so we arent used to them. We give them two bowls each with about 1.5 oz to 3 oz each twice a day with gibbets this week. They inhale all of it. The duk soup is the Marshall Ferret Powder.
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