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Post by Heather on Jul 12, 2012 20:06:45 GMT -5
Name : Justin and Breanne HFF username : Zerus
1. we learned about natural diets for ferrets by researchingon the internet. 2.We would like to be feeding them about 75% raw food, 25% kibble (Kibble would be just for when we are not at home to give them raw food). We would like to give the ferrets food prepared by us but we do not know which recipes to try and which kind of foods are alright to include. 3.We want to switch the ferrets to a natural diet because we want to give them a better lifestyle and hopefully increase longevity. 4.Yes, we are willing to make this committment. We want our ferrets to have the best life possible. 5.We currently have 2 ferrets. Zeus is a male ferret that is 2.5 years old and Cyrus is a female ferret that is about 2 years old. They are not overweight or underweight. Neither has any health problems but an small lump has been felt by the vet in Zeus but they are not sure what it is. We have had them since they were about 6 months old. 6.We currently feed the ferrets Evo pet food and Marshall Bandits treats. Also ferralax and/or ferret vite sometimes. 7.We have tried giving them some locally homemade ferret food but they didn't care for it. They just licked it when we added some ferretvite with it. 8.Our ferrets are free roam (in our 1 bedroom, ferret proofed apartment) and we also have 2 cats. They all get a long very well. 9.Everyday, all day
Hi and welcome to the mentoring program. In a little while your mentor (Carpetshark) will introduce herself and you can get started on a new adventure in natural ferret care and diets. Please remember to post regularly (daily or as per arranged with your mentor) so that your mentor can assist you move along safely in this adventure. If you experience computer difficulties or are going to be away, please notify your mentor and most of all relax and have fun . Your mentor is here to help you on this journey. ciao
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Post by Deleted on Jul 13, 2012 12:13:45 GMT -5
Hey Justin & Breanne! Welcome to the mentoring program! My name is Steph and I'll be your mentor on this wonderful journey A bit about me... I'm a 5th year university student currently finishing up my BSc. in psychology. After I graduate (1 year to go!) I plan on either getting my Master's in psych and becoming a counselor or getting my B.Ed and becoming an elementary school teacher. I currently live at home with my Mom, our two big mix-breed dogs Kima and Lola, our yorkie poo Maggie, two cats Magic and Marbles and of course the ferrets. I've been owned by ferrets for a little over a year now and currently have 5 of them, Sophie, Olivia, Howie, Bo and Nova. Sophie & Olivia were my first ferrets ever and are RC ferrets from Petland. They are 16 months old and I got them at 2 months old and had them eating freeze-dried raw within a couple of days and started the switch to raw within the first week of having them. Sophie is a sable and a quiet sweet ferret who likes to give kisses. Her only fault is that she's a terrible foot monster and will attack feet - socked or bare. Olivia is my special ferret and a champagne. She has a very anxious personality and suffers from sinus AV node blockage which causes occasional arryhtmia and coughing and sends her into an absolute panic attack. She is also very focused and when she gets an idea in her little head, she won't give up until she's accomplished it. She is sweet in her own ways though and occasionally let's me cuddle her. Howie - my third ferret, a rescue from FRES, the local ferret rescue here. I adopted Howie after fostering him, as a companion for Sophie because we weren't sure what was going on with Olivia's health at the time. He is between 2 and 3 years old and a sable mitt with a very cute tuxedo. He's a funny boy, he's very laid back and quiet but totally has a spunky side to him and makes constant pigeon sounds while playing. Howie was eating totally ferret (yuck!) when I adopted him but I had him switched over to raw in under a month - he took to raw meat amazingly well for an older ferret! Bo & Nova - my latest additions and 8 months old. They are my "Petland rescue" ferrets. I met them when they first arrived at Petland at just over a month old, way too young to be away from mum and already altered. A month later, they were still there and very sick. Nova had been attempting to nurse off of Bo's ears and they were both very underweight, lethargic and had bad diarrhea. Bo's was so bad that he had a pretty nasty anal prolapse too. They also had terrible ear mites. I had a very stern discussion with the Petland manager and they agreed to take them to the vet and cover all medical bills if I agreed to adopt both. So of course I did, with the help of wonderful people on this forum who raised the money for me to pay their "ransom" fees. They required a bit of medical care after that to treat URI's that I had to pay for but thankfully Bo didn't require prolapse surgery. Bo is a dark chocolate color and Nova is almost a Roany cinnamon color. Bo is my sweetheart and loves cuddles and Nova is definitely a bit of a diva. I switched them onto freeze dried raw right away when I got them and then transitioned onto full raw shortly there after. About my raw feeding experience...all my ferrets were put on a full raw diet as soon as possible after I got them. I wanted to do everything in my power to prevent insulinoma and keep them as healthy as possible. My ferrets currently eat a frankenprey style diet which means they get parts throughout the week to mimic a whole prey diet without having to feed whole prey. Their current diet consists of chicken, duck, quail, pork, beef and occasionally other protein sources. They also get commercial raw patties sometimes and freeze dried raw sometimes as well. Anyways that's me and my fuzzies! I look forward to working with you!
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Post by Deleted on Jul 13, 2012 12:22:51 GMT -5
All right! So now that you know about me and my fuzzies, I need to know a bit about yours! The first thing I need is a picture of each ferret. The picture needs to be from the angle described here: holisticferret60.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=switch&action=display&thread=4342 This will give me an idea of your ferrets' current body condition and allow me to monitor their health throughout the switch as I will get you to post updated pictures every 1-2 weeks. The second thing I need is the following Info for each ferret: Name: Weight: Current Diet: Activity Level: Current Stool Shape/Size: Lastly, I need to know if you have the following items on hand (and if not I need you to pick them up BEFORE we can start the switching process): 1) a scale for weighing the ferrets 2) the following ingredients for making raw soup: - 8oz chicken meat with no bones - 1 chicken liver (or 2oz other liver) - 2 chicken hearts (or 1 oz other heart) - 1/2 tsp egg shell powder (rinse and dry an egg shell on the counter over night. Then crush with a mortar and pestle or in a CLEAN coffee grinder). This is the recipe for each batch of soup so you will want to have more meat, hearts, livers and egg shell on hand at all times. Let me know when you have all that stuff and please post the pics and the information and we can get started!
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Post by Deleted on Jul 14, 2012 11:19:24 GMT -5
Hi Steph,
We do not have the stuff on hand that we need so we will be getting it later today. We are just wondering if chicken meat/heart/liver from the grocery store is ok? We know that some chicken may not be as good as other chicken so we just want to make sure that it is alright to pick this up from the grocery store.
Once we get the stuff that we need we will let you know!
Thanks, Breanne & Justin
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Post by Deleted on Jul 14, 2012 13:03:16 GMT -5
Chicken parts from the grocery store is absolutely fine Just make sure that it's plain chicken and not seasoned with anything. Organic is usually better when it comes to chicken because they do sometimes give chickens nasty hormones. But I use regular chicken and haven't had an issue here (Canada). As for the liver and the heart, I can find them at my regular grocery store about half the time. So if you're having trouble tracking them down you can always pop in a butcher shop. They will sell you big bags for really cheap. If they don't have chicken hearts or livers, they usually have turkey. Pork heart/liver is fine as well but I don't recommend beef heart/liver for starting out because it has a really strong smell/taste. If you still can't find any Another good place to find things is an Asian market (usually very cheap too) or possibly a pet health food store that sells raw products. Let me know if you're able to find everything okay
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Post by Deleted on Jul 14, 2012 21:44:05 GMT -5
Thanks for the tips Steph. We managed to find everything we need except for the liver. We will see if we can find any tomorrow. We are also wondering if it is alright to freeze the chicken/hearts/liver (when we get it) until we are ready to use it. We bought big packs so it may go bad before we are able to use it all.
Thanks and will let you know when we get the liver.
Justin & Breanne
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Post by Deleted on Jul 14, 2012 22:49:41 GMT -5
Perfect hopefully you can find the liver tomorrow. Yes you can absolutely freeze them. I have a whole mini freezer just for the ferret food, since it makes much more sense to buy in bulk, bag, and then freeze the food. Once you have the liver, feel free to go ahead and make the soup using the recipe in my post above. You will definitely need a food processor of some sort to make the soup, so you may also want to purchase a cheap one of those for ferret food if you don't want to use your own. Once the soup is made, let me know. But essentially the next step will be to get them to taste it. The best way to start this is with finger feeding. Sit the ferret comfortably in your lap, put a dab of raw soup on your finger and see if they will taste it. Use a bit of oil such as ferretone (not recommended to be used too often because of the carcinogenic preservative in it) or extra virgin olive oil or a fish oil such as salmon, on top of the soup if need be. You really want the ferret to get a taste so gently rub it inside their gums. If they like it, you can offer more. If they gag and act like you're poisoning them, totally normal! ;D Don't push it to the point of stressing them out. Just try a few taste tests and let me know how they take to it and then depending on how they react, I'll let you know how to proceed
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Post by Deleted on Jul 17, 2012 14:57:01 GMT -5
Hey Steph, Sorry for the late reply, we have been busy the past couple days. I guess the scale we got isn't accurate enough, so we need to go out and purchase another. We also went to a few grocery stores but none of them had chicken liver . So I'm going to call around to different places today and see what I can find, but if we cannot find anything can we go ahead and make the soup without the liver or is the liver necessary? Also, is there a certain way to prepare the soup or do we just blend it all and give it to them?
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Post by Deleted on Jul 17, 2012 16:19:11 GMT -5
Hey, That's okay, once the ferrets start eating raw I will need you to check in at least every second day, preferably every day if possible as its very important to monitor these switches closely Can you find any kind of liver at all? Yes we can start the soup tasting without liver, but your ferrets will need 2oz of liver per week as part of a balanced raw diet so I'd rather you make sure you can get liver now than to do the switch and then realize you can't get liver at all. What you want to do is place all ingredients in the food processor, blend, then add water and blend until you get a nice even soup consistency (no chunks). You will want to start off pretty watery and opposed to thick. We will slowly increase the thickness as the process continues Hope you have better luck tracking down the liver. Definitely try a butcher shop!
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Post by Deleted on Jul 19, 2012 18:51:24 GMT -5
Hi Steph - We finally found some liver. Our grocery store did end up having it, it just wasn't there the first time we went so I guess it is like your grocery store (has it sometimes, doesn't other times). We are drying an egg shell tonight and will be making the soup tomorrow.
We still haven't been able to find a scale that is accurate enough to weigh the ferrets. All we have been able to find is a scale for people but since the ferrets are so light it doesn't really show anything. They didn't have any scales at the pet store but the owner recommended that maybe we could use some kind of scale for food in the kitchen. For this we would have to go to some kind of kitchen specialty store probably. Is this what you would recommend we do or do you know where we could get an actual pet scale?
Thanks - Will let you know how it goes tomorrow.
Breanne and Justin
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Post by Deleted on Jul 19, 2012 20:15:23 GMT -5
Awesome, I'm glad you were able to find it I use a digital human scale to measure them but you can also buy a digital kitchen scale (You can get this at any department store). Get one with a flat top. Then you are going to need to get a flat tray of some sort. Put the tray on the scale, then zero the scale. Once it is zero'd you can measure the ferrets. When you offer the soup tomorrow: -take away the kibble for 1-2 beforehand. This will make them hungry to hopefully help enticing them to eat the soup and prevent upset tummy if they eat the soup (raw and kibble digest at different rates) -if they do end up eating a fair amount, wait 30 mins to replace the kibble. If they only eat a few tastes, you can probably replace the kibble right away. Let me know how it goes
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Post by Deleted on Jul 20, 2012 23:21:02 GMT -5
Hi Sarah
We gave the ferrets the soup mixture today. At first, Zeus wouldn't drink it out of the bowl but when we gave it to him off of my finger he would lick it off (which is surprising because usually he is very picky!). Eventually we got him licking my finger closer and closer to the bowl of soup and he was finally drinking right from the bowl, but we had to tilt it so that the soup was right at the edge. He drank it for about 3 minutes and then decided he didn't want any more.
Cyrus didn't like the soup at all. She wouldn't drink it out of the bowl or off my finger. We scruffed her and put it in her mouth a few times but she seemed to really hate it and definitely didn't want to have any!
We put about 10-15 tbsp of water in this mixture.
Can we keep the left overs in the fridge for next time? It seems like a lot to waste.
Thanks, Bre & Justin
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Post by Deleted on Jul 21, 2012 0:30:29 GMT -5
It's actually Steph but no worries That is amazing! Zeus sound like a natural!!! Just keep offering it to him like that and if he drinks it on his own, great! As for Cyrus, you're going to have to take things slower. This thread tells you how to scruff and stuff gently: holisticferret60.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=switch&action=display&thread=4340Just keep trying this a couple times a day with the soup. The soup can absolutely be kept in the fridge. Probably no more than 3 days though. So if it's a fair amount of soup what you can do is freeze it in ice cube trays (can get cheap ones from the dollar store). Then after the cubes are frozen, pop them out and stick them in zip loc bags and put back in the freezer. Then more soup can be frozen in the trays. When it comes to feeding time, fill a bowl with warm water, stick the ziploc bag in it and the ice cubes will defrost inside into soup. Remember, getting ferrets to even try raw for the first time can be very tricky! So just keep on it. If you can offer it 3-4 times a day, just to get her used to it. If you find she's being really reluctant, you can try this scruff and stuff method instead: holisticferret60.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=switch&action=display&thread=4343It took the mentor in that video, Sherry, months to even get her one ferret to try raw soup so don't lose faith if it takes a while! Let me know how it goes One final thing I will mention, is another method you can try. If both ferrets are healthy, no history of insulinoma or other health issues, you can take away kibble for 3-4 hours BEFORE trying to feed the soup. Hunger is often the best motivator! Let me know how things go tomorrow
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Post by Deleted on Jul 22, 2012 13:29:06 GMT -5
Hi Steph - Im so sorry for calling you Sarah.. I think I was very tired!
We tried giving it to the ferrets again yesterday. Zues will drink it out of the bowl by himself now without us having to give it to him on our finger. We tried the scruff and stuff methods with Cyrus but she still doesn't want to have anything to do with it. She gags sometimes when we rub it on her gums. She will sniff it from the bowl but won't have any. Since they hadn't had their food so long we started putting their kibble beside the soup in their cage so at least she might associate with with her food. We took their food away again this morning but the same things are happening.. Zues will drink it but Cyrus won't.
What is our next step?
Thanks Breanne & Justin
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Post by Deleted on Jul 22, 2012 13:50:50 GMT -5
No worries, I know the feeling! So pretty much the thing to do here is to just keep trying a couple times a day, every day with cyrus. Yes she will gag and act like you are trying to poison her, this is totally normal. It may very well take a week or two (or longer) and having her taste it everyday before she accepts it as "food". This is the dedication and hard work part with switching ferrets to raw. Keep them both on the kibble in the mean time. Since Zeus will drink soup on his home. He can have soup a few times a day. Just space it out so there is 30 minutes between each kibble meal and soup meal of his so that he doesn't get an upset tummy. Then just keep working on Cyrus. Does she like ferretone or extra virgin olive oil or fish oil? If so, take some soup on your finger and disguise it in oil. See if you can trick her into eating it this way. What you can also do is start moistening the kibble gradually. Start off with just a bit of water and if they'll eat that, you can gradually add more each day. By getting them to eat moist kibble, you are getting cyrus used to a different texture. Do make sure they will eat it though. If not, just leave it hard. Have you been able to get pictures or weights on them yet? Now is an important time to have these
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