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Post by Deleted on Aug 8, 2013 21:44:05 GMT -5
Haha, that's great (and I do the fridge thing too ). They probably did get quite a work out. It takes time and effort to get them used to using the right approach AND the right muscles when eating raw, and I'm so glad the girls got on board with it With hearts, if I'm feeding immediately and they're still not thawed, I'll run them under warm water, and they unthaw pretty quickly.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 9, 2013 0:24:41 GMT -5
Tried a straight chunk meal again tonight, went much better this time. This was three hearts, plus some gizzard meat, plus some rabbit kidneys. All three tucked in with gusto. (Well, Dogfish tucked in with gusto. Chimay and Dixie started off kinda slowly, like "Uh, what do I do with this?" But after a few tentative nibbles and licks, they figured it out and went to town.
Gonna try giving 'em some bone-in thigh meat this weekend.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 9, 2013 7:08:37 GMT -5
Oh, also forgot to mention: Haven't fed 'em kibble in a week now.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 9, 2013 11:51:03 GMT -5
Well, if today's feeding is any indication, Dixie's weight loss should turn around here soon. That little girl ate. She was wolfing it down. And it was straight-up chunks again. No soup or paste.
I feel like they're all on the same page now, so I'm hoping to get 'em on edible bone soon. I'm currently sprinkling their meat with powdered eggshell so they're getting at least SOME calcium, but I expect that full-blown bone will be better for them.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 11, 2013 0:53:35 GMT -5
Bone is always much better for them, definitely. Seems like all she needed was a bit of time to realize that hey, this stuff isn't so bad. Great to hear she's getting on board!
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Post by Deleted on Aug 11, 2013 5:50:24 GMT -5
Results of bone experiment: Dogfish and Dixie both tried it and really gave it a good effort. I bought thighs, and apparently you're not supposed to use weight-bearing bones. So the bones were a little thick for 'em. But they both tried their best, and did manage to eat some of it.
Chimay wasn't interested. I've chopped the bones up into smaller pieces and distributed them in their normal food packets (I pre-portion a week or so of feedings into snack-sized ziploc bags), so hopefully she'll stumble across them over the next week and give them a go.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 12, 2013 22:43:13 GMT -5
Update: Acquired a mouse today. Chimay got a clean kill, and did so pretty quickly for a first-time hunter. I didn't time it, but it couldn't have been more than 30-40 seconds. After I put the mouse in her food dish, she tried chewing on it. But she was much more distracted by the fact that she was back in her cage, and she wanted to get out. So she didn't stick with it.
Long story short, I ended up disemboweling the mouse, tossing the guts in the trash, and then chopping the mouse up. Through persistence and vigorous application of Vivify, I've gotten Dogfish to eat about half of it, including fur and bone. Dixie and Chimay ate very small amounts of it, basically nibbling some of the meat and/or organs off. (Like, I'm pretty sure that was a mouse kidney Dixie ate.)
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Post by Deleted on Aug 13, 2013 11:26:38 GMT -5
For chickens on up, weight bearing bones can be too big (though some ferrets are dedicated bone eaters, and will munch away). Things like CGH, contain all edible bone. And wow, Chimay's a little hunter! Whole prey (to eat) can be tricky even for ferrets that have been on raw for awhile, so don't worry. What activity you got out of them is actually great. It took me years to get my guys (some that had been on raw since they were 8-12 weeks old) to accept and enjoy whole prey items. If you plan to make that the diet, or to supplement whole prey regularly, just keep offering it A lot of the time, if you can get them, pinkies or chicks can be great. One taste (and that's the hardest part, I know, getting them to taste it, haha) and they usually go wild for them, since they're the "candy" equivalent of whole prey foods
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Post by Deleted on Aug 13, 2013 18:17:48 GMT -5
Well, Dogfish and Dixie are definitely cracking bones with gusto. I mashed up some of the thicker bone pieces from the chicken thighs, and have included a few with every meal. So they'll get several large chunks of chicken or gizzard, and also some small bone chunks with some meat still attached. And Dogfish and Dixie are chowin' 'em down. I saw Dogfish today dig out a chunk of just bone, no meat on it. And he ate it. Crushed it up good and swallowed the whole business.
Chimay is still not interested, but I have located a source of chicken necks and turkey necks for cheap. ($30 for 40 lbs of chicken necks, $20 for 30 lb of turkey necks.) So she's about to wind up with nothing BUT bones to crunch if she wants to eat. I think she'll get on board once she doesn't have boneless chunks to pick out and eat.
Latest weights Dogfish - 2 lbs even (down from 2 lb 1 oz last week) Dixie - 1 lb 13 oz (down from 1 lb 14 oz last week) Chimay - 1 lb 8 oz (no change from last week)
Keeping an eye on Dixie. She's always been my laziest ferret, and her activity levels have always been lower than the other two. She likes to sit in her various cardboard boxes and chew the cardboard. (She doesn't eat it -- just puts teeth marks all over.) On the other hand, she was dooking and wardancing today when I let them out of their cage after work, so she's just as playful as she's always been. So behavior-wise and activity-level-wise, she's acting fine. And I know she's eating, because I watch her eat. She's definitely not going without. So we'll see.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 15, 2013 15:43:38 GMT -5
Caught Chimay eating bones today. So I think we're pretty much converted now. I still want to get them to eat whole prey, but I think that's going to have to wait a month or two for financial reasons. In the meantime, here's my planned feeding schedule:
Monday: Turkey necks Tuesday: Turkey necks and non-turkey muscle meat Wednesday: Turkey necks and chicken hearts Thursday: Turkey necks Friday: Turkey necks and non-turkey muscle meat Saturday: Turkey necks and non-turkey muscle meat Sunday: Turkey necks and chicken livers
As of right now, they're eating about 6oz a day. I generally feed them approximately 2oz, three times a day, to minimize stashing. (I pre-portion their food in 4oz portions, put 'em in snack-sized Ziplock bags, and give 'em about half the bag at feeding time.)
I just bought 30lbs of turkey necks from a meat wholesaler near my house, which is why that list is so turkey-neck heavy. I know that three protein sources are preferred, so I will make sure that they get something besides turkey meat on the days when I feed them muscle meat along with the turkey. I didn't specify the exact meat, because I plan on changing it for variety and for improved health. Like, it might be fish one week, beef the next, pork the next, etc. The important thing is that it won't be turkey, so they'll have more than just turkey as a source of protein.
Chicken livers are the only organ meats I can get consistently, though I think I can get beef liver as well. I will also try to change up the organ meats so they're not getting JUST livers, but that might be easier said than done.
Thoughts? Suggestions?
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Post by Deleted on Aug 15, 2013 20:47:41 GMT -5
Yay! That's great to hear about Chimay How is Dixie doing today? Acting like herself? That IS really heavy on turkey - to be balanced there does need to be three sources spread more evenly over the week, and for graduating we need 3 staple proteins in the menu For organs, best bet might be going to a store and seeing if they can order in kidney, etc for you, because they really should have 5% liver, and 5% other organ. Other than that, I'd see about ordering online. Hare today has variety, and shipping is not outrageous (and for whole prey, I use American Rodent - they have mice, rats, and chicks. Though they've been out of chicks for awhile). I like them because it's a flat rate of $15 shipping for $100 worth of whole prey for VA Much more doable (and which is why I supplement their diet with raw, since they only get two whole prey items consistently).
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Post by Deleted on Aug 15, 2013 22:39:23 GMT -5
Dixie is doing fine. Since today was my day off, all three got to spend most of the day out of the cage (though, naturally, the spent most of their out-of-the-cage time asleep under my bed). But when they were awake and active, she was her normal self.
I got some of the turkey necks thawed out enough to chop some up (and man, what a pain *that* is!), and all three dove right in. I'm pretty excited.
Okay, so here's a revised menu:
Monday: Turkey necks Tuesday: Chicken wings and whole fish (Krogers always has some kind of whole fish -- fins, bones, tail -- on sale) Wednesday: Turkey necks and chicken hearts Thursday: Chicken wings Friday: Turkey necks and ground beef Saturday: Chicken wings and ground beef Sunday: Turkey necks and chicken livers
I do eventually plan on feeding them whole prey, but my plan is to breed my own to keep it more cost-effective. Once I get that going, you can add fresh rodent (gerbils, prolly) to that menu.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 17, 2013 19:42:58 GMT -5
Hahahaha, yep, you can count on ferrets sleeping most of the day away, but it's crazy how active they can be when they're finally awake - can seem like they're going forever (especially when they're favorite activities are things you don't WANT them to be doing ). That's great about Dixie Glad she's acting like herself. The menu is definitely getting better. On Monday and Tuesday I'm assuming you're feeding necks and wings twice on those days? Just to balance and rotate thing more evenly (less chance they'll get bored with the same food), have you thought about having chicken wings with the turkey necks on Monday? Only because the necks are very boney, so having two meals of that a day might be a tad much. It would require shuffling the menu around more, but as it stands now (and if the fish you get is bone in) that's ten meals, so you could take one bone in meal of chicken wings off, and add in another of ground beef, and still have 9 bone in meals
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Post by Deleted on Aug 17, 2013 20:49:50 GMT -5
I'm basing their menu on the "Basic Frankenprey Menu", which I thought was on the forum somewhere, but can't find right now. It's this, right here:
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
So on the days like Monday and Thursday, where it says "feed edible bone" twice, I would just feed turkey necks or chicken wings those days.
I portion their food into snack-sized ziploc bags, 4 oz per bag. I prep up enough food for a week or so and freeze them, and feed them around 6 oz (so a bag and a half) a day. I feed them three times a day, feeding half a bag. (I find that feeding them smaller portions more often reduces stashing.)
So far, they seem to be doing fine with the turkey necks. I chop them up into relatively small chunks to make them easier for the weezils to eat. Dixie in particular loves them. (She's my biter. She doesn't bite me, but every cardboard box I leave out for them to play in has her teeth marks all around the edges. So I think she really just likes to chew stuff, and I think she finds bone-gnawing very satisfying.)
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Post by Deleted on Aug 19, 2013 19:01:15 GMT -5
Right, but the average is 8-9 bone in meals, and I'm currently counting 10 in your menu (the example menu right above this post I'm writing has nine): 5 meals of turkey necks, 4 meals of chicken wings, and 1 bone in fish. I suggested removing one chicken wing meal and adding in beef, to get more variety in their menu (because chicken by far is the highest counted protein with 4 bone in meals, and 2 organ/muscle meat meals). The idea is to achieve as much rotation with your three staple proteins as possible, and it can be hard when there is limited access to different edible bones for ferrets, so you definitely have to streamline and take advantage where you can to get some different things in I've noticed when ferrets really get the hang of it, bone can be a very strong stimulator. My first female tended to be high strung and neurotic when I got her, but as she successfully transitioned to raw and to bone in particular, she calmed down and directed a lot of her energy toward RMBs - she absolutely adored them, since they gave her a constructive, natural outlet for her behaviors, and that sounds like Dixie has found the same kind of outlet 6 ounces for three ferrets is on the low side of the average, but since each ferret is different, and you know them and how they look and act, just keep an eye out for if you need to tweak amounts
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