Nutritional Organs are Major Hormone-Secreting Tissues:Liver
Kidney
Brain
Spleen
Pancreas
Gallbladder
Major glands (thymus, thyroid, parathyroid)
Uterus
Testicles
Pork Stomach Lining** (pork stomach
is an organ, but it is lower in nutrients than the others listed, so not particularly worth feeding)
Tripe is the stomach of ruminating animals (usually Beef). White tripe has all of the nutrients bleached out of it and should NOT be fed. Green tripe is high in nutrients but smells horrid and usually ferrets won’t go near it so it’s really not worth the bother. If your ferrets will eat it, more power to you.
Chitterlings (pork small intestine): similar to stomach this is an organ but is low in nutrients compared to the others and usually picked out of whole prey so there isn't much benefit to feeding it.
NON-Organ meatsGizzards – gizzards are comprised of primarily muscle tissue and tendon, nutritionally they are a
muscle meat source. Great for cleaning teeth.
Tongue – tongue is a
muscle meat
Lungs- lungs do not secrete hormones, they are comprised of connective tissue and endothelium. They are not considered a true “organ” as far as raw diet is concerned. They are however a GREAT part of a raw diet and are very high in Iron and Vitamin B12, as well as other B Vitamins. Definitely a good thing to feed if you have access.
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They need to have 10% of their entire diet organ each week. OF that 10%, it should be about HALF liver, and HALF other organs (see list above). Kidney and brain are the best, but the other listed organs are all great too - the more variety the better. EACH WEEK they need ONE AND A HALF MEALS of organ.
You can do one meal of liver, and half a meal of Other Organs.
Or you can do one meal of half liver, half other organs and one meal of half liver.
OR you can do one meal half liver half other organs, and Half a meal another day that is also half liver half other organs (so 1/4 liver, 1/4 other organs, 1/2 heart).
Here are some EXAMPLES of how you could structure that. This is the part of the diet that can get a little confusing so ask away if you have any questions or are unclear about anything.
Saturday:
am: pork liver
pm: half pork kidney, half chicken hearts
Sunday
am: beef heart
pm: chicken wings
OR
Saturday:
am: half pork liver, half pork kidney and brains
pm: half chicken liver, half beef heart
Sunday
am: chicken hearts
pm: chicken wings
OR
Saturday:
am: half liver, half kidney
pm: 1/4 liver, 1/4 brain, 1/2 heart
Sunday
am: chicken hearts
pm: chicken wings
The above 3 examples all give one and a half meals of heart, and one and a half meals of organ that is
at Least half liver. Does that make sense? Please let me know if it is confusing.
Something to remember is it can be very helpful to prepare food in advance. I buy in bulk, and chop everything up and put it into sandwich sized ziplock bags and freeze them. Then all I have to do for each meal is pull out a ziplock bag of meat and give it to them. With that in mind, you can create organ mix bags, that contain half a meal's worth of liver, and half a meal's worth of a mix of Other organs. My two boys together eat approximately 1/3-1/2 of a ziplock sandwich bag (less in summer, more in winter). Then you could make other baggies of JUST heart, and other baggies of half heart, half organ mix. You can use a permanent marker to label the bags. It is time consuming but it is a lot less time consuming throughout the week. I pick one day and I go shopping and stock up on a bunch of meat. Then I take the time to prepare it all ahead of time in meal-sized baggies, and store it all in the freezer. That takes a lot of time but THEN I don't have to do all of that prep work every day, I just have to grab a bag of already prepared meat each meal.
BONES. most poultry bones are of edible size for ferrets, though some of the bigger ones need to be broken to give them a starting point. Some good bone sources are:
Cornish Game Hen (PERFECT bones for ferrets, but can be a bit spendy)
turkey (goes on sale for super cheap right after Thanksgiving)
duck
goose
pork button bones (some ferrets can eat
small pork rib bones, some cannot)
rabbit
whole prey (mice, rats, guinea pigs, etc)
quail
pheasant
partridge
Turkey necks are a great bone source (so are chicken necks and chicken feet if you ever come across those btw). Turkey bones and duck or goose bones often have to be broken up a little bit for them, especially the leg bones, the larger wing bone, and the neck/spine. The wing tips and ribs are easy to eat even from larger birds though, and if you break up the larger bones like I mentioned, it will give them a starting point and they should be able to eat most of the bone.
Even if you just mix one of two other bones sources in here and there that is better than nothing. Chicken allergies are fairly common and can occur later in their lives so it is good to have another source that they already recognize just in case. It also helps give them more variety both for nutritional reasons AND so they don't get bored of eating so much chicken.
The more expensive meats like game hen and duck I feed less often. You can buy a whole duck and chop it up into little baggies like I mentioned, and then stretch out feeding it over time so they get some here and there to add a little variety, but you don't use up the duck super fast.