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Post by Deleted on Mar 26, 2013 18:10:17 GMT -5
Pixie has been eating slivers of meat, not had much today when I tried to monitor her though, worried she isn't eating enough really. I am going out to them now before bed so will see if I can get her to eat some more.
The others are all eating meat, just not a lot at all. I am going to try putting the chunks in out of the dish as I have a theory that they don't seem to touch it in a dish (even though I bought some shallow cat milk dishes which they seem to prefer eating out of). I have a meat box I have made so will put that in with their meat in to see if that encourages them to eat more. They have lots of cardboard boxes in their cage as they like to stash/ eat their meat in them.
Unless they have stashed the mice REALLY well the 3 small mice I put in last night with their bellies slashed open have been eaten - by whom I don't know. I have another look again now as sometimes meat just turns up despite my wide tooth comb searches. Smudge has a pinkie today and normally Zebedee and Gizmo will eat Pixies and Fuzz mice but were not interested in the pinkies when I offered. Jasmine and Pixie are not interested in mice, they will stash them, but never seen them eat them.
I leave chunks in 24/7, until recently they had soup 24/7 too for Pixie. Overnight I am leaving their kibble in just in case. There is often meat left still when I get home from work and up in the morning. I'll see if the meat box encourages them to eat more but if not then I will be back to ask for ideas to get them to eat more meat!
They have heart twice a week minimum and I have been making them a liver and kidney soup twice a week which I have now got to a thin soup with slivers of liver and kidney in (they won't eat it if its not in soup). I wanted them to progress from having it all blended so they will eventually eat the liver and kidney as it is. They all eat the slivers in the soup now, I add some fish oil to it as well.
They have butternut squash with fish oil and bonemeal (which is a tsp each ferret of all blended together (so approx. 1/2tsp butternut squash per ferret).
Thanks for the link, I use Honeybrook farm but will look into the others thanks.
Zebedee and Smudge has lost weight over the last 5 days but it is difficult to know if it is seasonal, although it is super cold here.
Have you had other students whose ferrets don't seem to eat much meat? When I go in in the morning and the meat has hardly been touched and I hand feed to make sure they are getting meat in them before I go to work, they will guzzle it down or sometimes not be interested at all.
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Post by Sherry on Mar 27, 2013 10:10:40 GMT -5
Don't forget- it is spring, and appetites will sometimes cut by half. Right now, our 3 smallest girls are eating maybe 2oz per meal between them. A feeding den is a good idea. You may even want to use a couple of them to start with. Great news on the mice! I keep the pinkie mice to either treats, or to teach them how to eat whole prey. One method I've found that usually works is to start with pinkies chopped up and mixed in with regular meats. When they eat that, I just cut in half and mix in, then whole mixed in then by themselves. Move from there to fuzzy mice, then hoppers, etc. When it gets to real fur I cut open the belly and squirt in a bunch of oil to get them tasting it. Do that a couple times is all it usually takes. One tip- if you continue hand feeding they are going to expect you to continue hand feeding I'm caught in that loop with one of ours right now. This w/e when I actually have some time I'm going to have to work on getting her to eat on her own again! The rest all looks good
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Post by Deleted on Mar 27, 2013 18:44:03 GMT -5
I know I am probably creating a problem as they will/ have come to expect it. The hand feeding is so I can make sure each one is definitely eating. So should I just leave them i.e. not hand feed and trust that they will eat the meat? They will help themselves, it is just they don't eat a lot at all. We are going on a holiday in Cornwall, South England from Friday so I will be with them 24/7 so I can monitor what they are eating throughout the day. Although we are in a caravan in deepest Cornwall so it won't be a true representation but should help. I will make sure I pack my scales ;D so I can weigh what they are eating. Today they all ate pretty well, even Pixie although she did turn her nose up to beef so I had to defrost some turkey - she has me well trained ;D I have just tucked them up for the night and no one was interested in the meat so looks like this evening they've not touched their meat. Zebedee and Gizmo had a few pieces of turkey and Jasmine ate some mouse (yay!) but Smudge wasn't interested and Pixie just stashed what I offered. Good idea about putting oil in the mouse they are having a lot of oil ( www.hollandandbarrett.com/pages/product_detail.asp?pid=146&prodid=421&cid=17 ) at the moment, research tells me that they cannot have too much but thought I'd check with you to? Thanks I'll try and post as much as I can while I am away but internet in Cornwall will be via a dongle and not very good reception so I may be AWOL for the week.
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Post by Sherry on Mar 27, 2013 19:43:03 GMT -5
Short term it's not bad. If their stools get oily then cut back a bit. It's a toss up with hand feeding and letting them do it themselves. I don't hand feed unless they are sick, or I notice them losing weight. Try leaving them with it for a full day just to see how they do.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 28, 2013 3:08:12 GMT -5
OK thanks. I left them this morning to their own devices so will see how much they have eaten by the time I get home this evening.
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Post by Sherry on Mar 28, 2013 9:09:45 GMT -5
If they haven't eaten much this evening, try leaving them with fresh overnight. If they haven't eaten much by morning, THEN you might wind up hand feeding again, or at least starting them off.
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Post by Sherry on Apr 6, 2013 10:13:48 GMT -5
Updates?
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Post by Sherry on Apr 25, 2013 8:09:21 GMT -5
This from a private message from emz-
Friday - heart / turkey Saturday - liver / kidney / Turkey / pinkie mice Sunday - Turkey / baby quails / Heart Monday - Heart / crawler mice / Pork Tuesday - Head end of 1/2 Rabbit (with bones) Wednesday - Beef / Turkey Thursday - Turkey / Pork
Everyday they have butternut squash with fish oil and bonemeal.
The mice tend to be eaten by Smudge, Zebedee and Gizmo, never seen Jasmine or Pixie eat a mouse - stash a mouse yes, but never eat. Gizmo prefers pinkie mice, Smudge I suspect eats all the mice first as she is the most enthusiastic. I try and feed them the mice when I am around so I can encourage them all to eat and not just one ferret to eat them all - however they tend to just stash for later so it is hard to gauge who is eating the mice.
Rabbit I tried again but they barely touched this with the "poisoned" bone in it. It was more to see if they would take chunks with bone in as I don't feel they are getting enough bone with just the bonemeal which I'd prefer not to have to give them but I need to at the moment as they aren't eating bones and so far are up to crawler mice not adult mice which would be true bone for them.
The baby quail was played and stashed from place to place but not eaten. I was hoping they'd get a taste for it so I could introduce adult quail.
Stool's are a mixture, generally pretty firm but we get a few runny ones in the day. Gizmo in particular gets runny stools, at least one per day. He is on 1/4 tablet pred every three days so this is the last stage of weaning him off the steroids.
Weight wise, they have all lost weight but I am putting this down to seasonal, but I am keeping an eye on their weights.
All 5 are eating meat chunks really well and I no longer have to hand feed.
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Post by Sherry on Apr 25, 2013 8:11:22 GMT -5
Alright, let's get them going on bone! Using the quail you have, take about 1/4 of one, and chop it up really well. Mix that into whatever their favourite meat happens to be and see how they accept it.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 25, 2013 9:29:38 GMT -5
OK I will mix chopped up quail into turkey - that seems to be there most favourite meat Jasmine had some Pinkies today so it looks like it is just Pixie that doesn't fancy them. I put some oil into it but she just licked all the oil out ;D I guess I have to remember that Pixie is behind the rest in terms of her "journey". Just the fact she is loving meat is fantastic - at one point I wasn't sure it would happen. I have some crawler mice out to mix in with their meat today so I will do baby quail tomorrow. Zebedee has an intolerance to chicken as I have said before - I suspect this may be the case for Gizmo too. However, I haven't given them chicken for years now. Is it worth trying them with chicken wings? They used to love them years ago and I think it would be a good start to get them on to bone. However, is it worth risking since I know they have had an intolerance in the past? I think the loose stools (which cannot be nice for them) may be down to lack of bone. Thanks
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Post by Sherry on Apr 25, 2013 14:39:53 GMT -5
How about Cornish hen instead? My Boris also had a chicken intolerance but could eat that. With pinkies you can also cut those in half and mix it in with their meat. Just leave it on the counter for about 30 minutes first so the chopped up pinkies take on some of the meat flavor. You go from that, to mixed in whole, to by themselves and up the sizes. When you get to fur you may have to cut open the belly and squirt som oil inside.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 29, 2013 4:38:50 GMT -5
I don't think we can get get Cornish Game Hen here - when I looked previously I couldn't find any.
They have been eating halved pinkies in their meat - although Pixie stashes them and the others find them and eat them, she doesn't seem to have any intention of eating them.
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Post by Sherry on Apr 29, 2013 9:10:50 GMT -5
What a little brat! Can you make the meal 1/2 pinkies and 1/2 meat? Let them marinate in the meat for about an hour on the counter, see if she'll eat them then. With the chicken, I'd not bother unless you can get organic. Sometimes the sensitivity is to the hormones or antibiotics the chickens were given. And can you go over what bone supplies you have again for me?
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Post by Deleted on Apr 29, 2013 11:25:21 GMT -5
I'll try half pinkies and half meat marinated as you say to see if Pixie will eat them.
I'll hold off chicken then.
They are having bonemeal mixed in butternut squash daily but it is about half of what they should be having, if I put too much bonemeal in then they won't touch the butternut squash, despite lots of fish oil to disguise the taste. Yesterday I gave them all soup (1/2 tsp bonemeal to 8oz meat). I am adding extra eggshell to it tonight as they are not getting the full 1/2tsp each from the soup. Is that OK?
I really wish they'd eat bone. They will all each mice crawlers/fuzzies apart from Jasmine, and as you know Pixie won't even touch the first stage pinkies.
Actually that said, now they are all keen meat eaters I might try coating their meat in eggshell like you had suggested before. So I just wet the meat, roll in eggshell and feed. If they still aren't keen, shall I try a coating of fish oil on the meat instead of water, and then roll in eggshell?
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Post by Deleted on Apr 29, 2013 11:27:04 GMT -5
Oh by the way, I don't normally give soup, I just did yesterday to try and get a bit more bone into them.
They are due their organ soup this evening so I will add eggshell to it too to get their bone intake up.
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