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Post by Deleted on Oct 24, 2013 6:27:25 GMT -5
They might be eating while you're not watching. How often are you putting food out? If they immediately stash instead of eating, then they're not hungry at the moment and would probably only nibble at some choice treat.
You can try mixing slivers of kidney/organs in with some chicken and let them sit in a bag for a few hours marinating together. Especially nice juicy, bloody chicken.
Also, have you tried drizzling a few drops of hot water on the new food? That releases the smell and usually will entice a ferret to at least sniff and lick it.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 25, 2013 6:33:57 GMT -5
Just letting you know, I will be out of town for the weekend with limited internet time/access. If you need me, please do feel free to email me though. My email is posted in my first post of the thread.
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Post by thelifeofmyferrets on Oct 25, 2013 16:46:39 GMT -5
They might be eating while you're not watching. How often are you putting food out? If they immediately stash instead of eating, then they're not hungry at the moment and would probably only nibble at some choice treat. You can try mixing slivers of kidney/organs in with some chicken and let them sit in a bag for a few hours marinating together. Especially nice juicy, bloody chicken. Also, have you tried drizzling a few drops of hot water on the new food? That releases the smell and usually will entice a ferret to at least sniff and lick it. They must be eating when I am not watching. I put food out from 7am and then at 5 pm. I used to do 3 small meals but they weren't eating dinner. The warm water trick worked. They actually ate all of brunch! Usually they leave most of the organs left over. I also cut up some of the organs smaller but I did see Charlie chewing on a piece of liver. It made me so happy. I think I just needed to be patient and wait. It took about a week for them to get used to the bigger pieces. Lucy and Gus caught on quick. I'll do the same thing next week. Maybe without the salmon oil. Tonight I did hot water but no salmon oil. Thank you so much! I also got Gus to eat some egg yolk, he never ate it before but he finally ate some. Are chicken feet okay for ferrets to eat? I want new snacks. Charlie won't touch n-bones since the raw switch. I give him egg for a treat but if he eats too much, his poo turns yellow. Salmon oil is for eating purposes. if so, how do I prepare it? Have a nice weekend!
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Post by Deleted on Oct 28, 2013 6:11:12 GMT -5
Chicken feet are good treats, they will leave them with some odd yellow looking poos after eating though. Mine will eat them whole, to start you could try chopping them with a cleaver. Cut off all the toes I suppose and see if they'll try that. Drizzles with a tiny bit of warm water or oil if needed to encourage sampling.
I'm glad the water trick worked for you. It worked well enough for a lot of my brats. I would say be patient and give them a little time to adjust to new meats, they sound like they'll do fine with it and just need their own pace.
Jerky is a nice treat for them, either home made or from somewhere that sells USA sourced and made jerky, Can't trust the stuff made in China anymore, it's been recalled before. If you buy jerky you want to make sure it's untreated with chemicals, with no spices or anything added. There's also a few brands of commercial treats such as wysong's dream treats. I buy tubs of Freeze dries liver or freeze dried dinner to use on occasion.
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Post by thelifeofmyferrets on Oct 29, 2013 9:54:39 GMT -5
I'll definitely try chicken feet as a treat.
I bought one jerky then the next day it was recalled. That weekend I made chicken jerky but only Tilly would eat it so I gave it to the neighbor's dog. Maybe i'll try it again since they have switched to raw.
I am just so excited but I'll give them time.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 29, 2013 17:47:54 GMT -5
FD raw and jerky taste like raw meat (I assume) but are drier and more like kibble in consistency so I find them to be popular with ferrets transitioned over from kibble. My two boys who switched to raw at 8 weeks as soon as they came home from the pet store are less interested in things like that, they're happy to consider a drumstick a treat.
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Post by thelifeofmyferrets on Oct 31, 2013 7:20:25 GMT -5
Take your time, don't stress out and push the ferrets too hard if they're being stubborn, work at it gradually. They can -and probably will at some point- backslide in their progress, it happens. It sucks, but you can work through it. You were right. They digressed this week. They aren't eating as much and arent eating all the organs. Maybe I should spoon feed them, they seem to like that.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 1, 2013 17:41:59 GMT -5
They could just not be as hungry some days. Mine have days where they will need 3 meals, other days where they don't even finish a second. Being picky about organs is a no go though. Hand feeding is usually popular, you could try feeding them small pieces from your hands as well as the spoon.
How are they doing (or were doing before they got into a snit) with the size of the pieces they were eating? Are/were they moving up in size willingly to bigger pieces? Are they willing to eat any bone?
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Post by thelifeofmyferrets on Nov 3, 2013 10:47:58 GMT -5
You are right. Some days they eat a lot and other days they don't. Few pieces of the heart and liver are left so today I am going to cut them up smaller.
I have tried bone in the past and they ate it but I haven't tried it in awhile because the last time I tried they wouldn't so I was going to work up to it. They are weird, they eat the bigger pieces but they wont eat all of them. I saw Charlie nomming on a liver piece.
Oh, I tried spoon feeding the organs, Tilly ate it, Lucy did what you were explaining( she would hide the food and she even tried to take the spoon).
I am doing it every 3 days so I can change the size if need be. Once I find a size that's good, I'll do weeks at a time again.
It seems like they like either the soup or the bigger chunks not inbetween. I think they like chewing on it.
I'll watch better this week and see how they do.
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Post by thelifeofmyferrets on Nov 3, 2013 10:51:27 GMT -5
Do you think I should separate the organs and chicken meat? Like give them the organs first to make sure they eat them all? Instead of mixing them together?
Maybe they are getting all full on the chicken?
Its not like they are leaving a bunch out maybe like a half ounce. I was just concerned because when I had the soup they ate it all.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 3, 2013 14:06:14 GMT -5
I'd probably offer one meal of organs, then the second meal of the day as chicken meat or bone in meat etc. It's important that they do get calcium in their diet, so if you are going to be going bone light for a while you will want to use eggshell or bone meal powder to keep their stools firmer and to keep deficiencies from forming. While it does take quite a while for a calcium deficiency to form, once it does happen it can be devastating and difficult to recover from. Swimmer kits and rickets are good examples of what happens to a ferret not getting enough calcium in their diet over time.
Taking food away to stash and eat later is normal and perfectly fine, but you will have to keep an eye on them at first to make sure they are actually eating it themselves later. It's common for a ferret to stash stuff and then have another ferret some by and steal and eat the stash.
If they like larger chunks of meat you can certainly offer it to them, they don't require small pieces unless they are refusing to eat larger or only have a few teeth/dental issues and have problems chewing. If they prefer to eat a whole wing or drumstick, by all means let them.
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Post by thelifeofmyferrets on Nov 3, 2013 18:31:00 GMT -5
I am noticing them only stashing the organs, Can just make organ soup and have the muscle meat and bones chunks?
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Post by Deleted on Nov 3, 2013 19:46:38 GMT -5
Yeah, organ soupie is fine if they are eating mostly solid meals all week, their teeth will stay clean. Eventually they might get used to them enough to eat them solid.
You could also try making ferret "gummis" sometime maybe, with organs. There's a recipe on here to basically take plain, unflavored gelatin and mix it with meat puree and possibly something else to make a meat gummy bear type treat for ferrets. No sugar in them or anything like that obviously.
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Post by thelifeofmyferrets on Nov 3, 2013 20:45:38 GMT -5
I'll try organ soupie then because they were eating all of it in soup form. Thank you, I have been so worried.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 4, 2013 7:10:44 GMT -5
Have you had a chance to work on getting them more comfortable with eating bones?
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