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Post by Deleted on Mar 19, 2014 8:48:01 GMT -5
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Post by Deleted on Mar 19, 2014 11:17:15 GMT -5
Yep, the MPC chunks look like they should be fine. As for steps, don't cut the meat entirely from the bone, you want it still attached or they might just pick through and ignore the bones. Just cut a slit along the bone so the mallet can make direct contact with the bone.
So basically, what I would do with a whole animal, would be to first separate the limbs and break down the frame into manageable pieces. Then you can either take the mallet to it first and break down pieces from the smashed bits, or you can chop them into smaller chunks and smash them that way. Smashing the bones with expose the marrow, cutting them into chunks is just to make the smashing less of a mess lol. Try both methods with each leg if you want, so you can see which works better for you. I can't recall if we've had anyone do an exact walk-through of this process, I can only remember Jason's thread that I linked a few weeks ago but that was for larger chunks. To be honest, I'm not sure how often this method is used, I just know it works because this is how I switched Theia (after I had graduated with Javik).
Basically your goal is to smash the bone and meat until it almost resembles grind, but a bit larger. Don't break it down TOO much, just enough so that the bones are about one step larger than the size in their grinds, and the muscle meat should be in strips for the most part, which you might have to do with a knife after the smashing.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 19, 2014 13:52:48 GMT -5
Smashing! (think British).
I have a partially thawed Cavvy that I will be cutting and gutting tonight. Keep your fingers crossed. I can deal with the pre-prepped quails that HT provides. MPC also offers pre-prepped rabbits. I might have to go with them as well.
Should I keep the head for them to chew on? ewwww
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Post by Deleted on Mar 19, 2014 14:13:44 GMT -5
Yeah, I believe Jason feeds cavvy with the head on. The brain provides a good organ source if they get to it...Then again, since you're going to have to smash it up, I'd probably remove it for now lol, once they can eat bone-in chunks you can start leaving the head in the meal.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 20, 2014 9:33:56 GMT -5
Everyone ate a little last night. The smallest pieces went first, the larger ones were stashed. Rufus shakes his pieces to make sure they're really dead. I think I'm going to have to do a slow transition. I had to add in a small bit of grinds and water to get them to recognize the chunks as food. I tried without anything, with blood from the cavvy added, and with some Salmon Oil. All they did was lick off the Salmon Oil. Since I've been serving the heart strips mixed in with the grinds and warm water, I guess they're used to that now. So, I mixed the cavvy chunks in with a small bit of grinds and warm water (as well as some leftover pig heart slices. They went to town after that. Over time, I will continue to reduce the ratio of grinds to chunks until it is all chunks, just like I did with the soup and grinds. Remember originally it was all blended meat and then I started adding grinds, and eventually I was able to stop blending the meat. That is my plan with these guys for this phase too. I found a new stash spot for Rufus in the empty space in the night stand I have here near my desk (this room is where old furniture goes to die). He's been stashing toys in there, but this morning I heard "crunch, crunch, crunch" and sure enough, he was in there nomming on a chunk of cavvy shoulder.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 20, 2014 11:24:52 GMT -5
This is great progress I didn't expect you to not have to add something to make it appealing to them, that's why we recommend adding the slivers/chunks to whatever they're used to the first few days or weeks and just continue to increase the new food and decrease the old. The fact that all of them ate some of the cavvy is good news! The key is to know the pace they're going at and work with it, with some ferrets it takes time, others it can happen overnight. Eating stashes is a good sign too Especially since it sounds like it was pretty bony! How did the process go for you? Did you have trouble with the skinning and gutting? Did you find a method of smashing that worked for you, or was the idea of it all a bit tough to swallow?
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Post by Deleted on Mar 20, 2014 12:59:56 GMT -5
I did the slow and steady. I followed the pictures from Jason's forum post on how to butcher a cavvy. I started by skinning it, using a very sharp filet knife. Then I opened the body cavity and removed the stomach, bladder and intestines whole (and straight into the trash). Everything else got hacked into small chunks.
My husband walked in towards the end. I'm standing there, with blood all over my hands and the knives and I was at the part where I was using the cleaver to hack the parts into smaller parts. There was blood all over the cutting board and counter and there I was, whack... whack... whack... whack...
It looked like a scene out of a horror movie. My husband was very grossed out. I had a lot of trouble with the skull. I couldn't hack that thing in half, so maybe my cleaver isn't as sharp as I thought.
I didn't do any smashing. I just hacked so that each chunk of bone was small and had meat attached to it. These guys have been eating small hunks of bone already, so I figured it might be easier for them to get it if they were already chewing a piece of meat with their back teeth.
Surprisingly, I don't mind the smell anymore. I guess the 5 months of raw feeding has desensitized me. The blood and gore didn't bother me either. I didn't look at its face at all. That is my thing, I guess; I can't look at their faces while I'm working.
I approached it as if it was a science class and I was dissecting to learn about the organs. We did it with a frog in HS, so I approached it the same way, as an educational experience.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 20, 2014 14:43:24 GMT -5
That's exactly how I approach butchering. I like to think of it as an educational experience as well. I challenge myself to identify all the organs and body parts which makes it a bit better of an experience.
Sounds like they're taking to the chunks better than I'd expect then, if they're not even getting smashed bones. Then again, i don't have a cleaver, so smashing was my version of cutting them into appropriate pieces haha.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 24, 2014 14:12:23 GMT -5
OK, so far so good. We've been doing random chunks of meat, containing bone, hair, who knows. Its just hunks of cavvy. I mix them in with some HT ground Rabbit, some MPC ground Turkey and some pig heart slivers. Add in some warm water, and my double boiler effect (warm water in a tupperware under the stainless steel bowl) and the meat feels like warm, live prey.
Everyone drinks the water and chews on the meat. Rufus still shakes his chunks to "kill" them every time. Skeeter and Trigger are more concerned with stuffing their faces. Candy has even been eating the chunks but bites them off right as she gets to the bone and leaves the bony part behind.
We had a small scare this morning. Trigger got a hunk of bone stuck in his mouth in the back. He was drooling all of the place because it was setting off his gag reflex - way at the back of his mouth, and he was pawing at his mouth to try to dislodge it.
I couldn't help him. I stuck my fingers in his mouth to try to get it (almost got bitten doing that because he was thrashing). After a very intense minute, he got it out and was fine. He wiped his face and paws on the blanket and went right on with his business.
All of the Ferrets are exhibiting more energy and excitement. Instead of roaming around and lazy playing, they're running and tackling each other. Jason mentioned on Facebook that eating prey is an enrichment tool and I should expect to see them be more energetic. Boy was he right.
Everyone is looking great.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 24, 2014 18:40:30 GMT -5
Ah! This was exactly what I have been hoping for, for you! I'm so glad this step is going well. It's only a matter of time now > (hehe). As for the bone, unfortunately this can happen at first (although it happens just as often with kibble), and it is definitely scary, but generally they are able to control the situation themselves. It often happens when they eat too eagerly and aren't careful with their food (this becomes less frequent once they've got large chunks because it takes more time to break down the chunks, resulting in a safer pace of consumption.) And yes, prey is definitely a good enrichment! So many different tastes and textures and smells, and I personally believe animals more closely related to their natural prey offer a different kind of enrichment than, say, cow and pork; it likely fires up their prey drive as it seems Rufus has been exhibiting.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 25, 2014 8:48:40 GMT -5
ok Rufus is a rock star. He is completely ignoring the grinds now and he fishes around in the bowl for the chunks. He's been eating them, bones and all. I'm hoping the others follow his lead a bit more, but it seems more of a slow process for them. I think Trigger and Skeeter get lazy sometimes (don't we all? I have two words for you... Fast Food).
Today, Rufus pulled a HUGE hunk (I must not have cut it all the way through, so it was like two connected to each other) and dragged it out of the enclosure to the spot behind my armchair where Candy normally stashes the toys.
After that, Rufus and Candy were doing a light tug of war. I say light because they were both chewing on opposite sides of the meat, lady and the tramp style. It wasn't as though they were trying to get the meat away from each other but I'm pretty sure they weren't too keen on sharing. It was very cute.
The gang seems 100% more excited for meals now. They swarm me when I go to put the food down, some even try to climb up my legs. I love it! This is what happy, healthy ferrets are supposed to look and act like. I can't believe the difference these past few months have made.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 25, 2014 11:39:44 GMT -5
Yay! Yay! Yay! (dance) So happy to see all the good updates!! I'm about to head out for work, but I just wanted to pop in and reply!
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Post by Deleted on Mar 25, 2014 14:32:55 GMT -5
I thought Candy wasn't eating the bigger hunks as much. It turns out she's not eating them out of the food bowl. I saw her just now with a piece of Rufus's stash. She dragged it over to her stash spot and I heard her munching away. I'm so very happy! I guess she prefers to eat in private without the boys' big heads getting in her way.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 25, 2014 19:20:50 GMT -5
Haha well that makes sense! She just wants to keep her prize away from the boys
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Post by Deleted on Apr 3, 2014 8:16:40 GMT -5
Can you say Norovirus? yuck. I've been sick for almost a full week now, so no fuzzy time for me, but I wanted to give you an update anyway.
They are hilarious. Their eating behavior has totally changed. Rufus has his own stash spot now and will not eat with the others. He pulls his chunks out and marches over to his den to eat. The den, ironically is a single ferret carrier that I had bought for the purpose of taking them to various rooms in the house (like the upstairs bathroom for playtime in the tub). It is now Rufus's personal feeding den. It was too small anyway, so I'm not upset.
Candy, as you know, waits until the guys are done and then pulls her chunks out. She likes to drag them out of the enclosure and over to her hidey hole in the play area. I don't generally want food back there but she's very neat about it so I've let her do it.
Skeeter and Trigger don't care who's watching. They're like pigs sniffing out truffles in the bowl now. Trigger roots through the grinds until he finds a chunk and then drags it out and eats it. Skeeter is more like a vacuum. He just eats whatever is in front of his face, whether it is grind or chunk.
After the cavvy ran out, we switched to quail. I enjoyed hacking them much more since they came with their feathers removed. Plus the bones are softer. I was able to hack all of it - head included - into nice chunks for them.
Hope you're doing well.
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