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Post by Deleted on Jan 26, 2014 19:29:29 GMT -5
Awesome that the egg yolk got them eating up the liver and heart, just don't over do the egg yolks!Too many egg yolks can cause an upset tummy and lead to nasty poops again. No more than 2-3 egg yolks per week, it's slightly more (3-4) if you use quail eggs because they're relatively small eggs. Try adding a few drips oil to their organs/ hearts to make it appetizing. Don't add too much or else you're just lubricating their intestines and you'll get some sloppy poops.
That's great! Lamb chops are muscles! You can buy these and give them as a different source of protein muscle meat. Whenever they get organs, ask them to save them for you.
You can order ground whole prey but you have to keep some things in mind. You know that whole prey is naturally well balanced for any animal and we try to emulate this in frankenprey. 5% liver, 5% organs, 10% hearts, 10-15% bones and the rest muscle meat per week. We use this as a rule of thumb for frankenprey although, when you introduce whole prey into the mix, you may or may not need to tweek a few of your meals--depending on how much whole prey you feed. If you only feed ground whole prey once in the entire week it won't affect the rest of the frankenprey meals. Although, if you feed 4 or more ground whole prey meals in a week it will affect the other frankenprey meals.
Since a healthy ferret should have 14 meals per week.. they need 1.5 heart meals, about 7-9 meat-in-bone meals (depending on the poops and the ferret, and the rest of the meals muscle meat. Now if you feed 1 ground whole prey meal, just count it as the 1.5 meat-in-bone meal for the week but if you're feeding more ground whole prey meals, for example 4, you're down to 1 organ meal, 1 heart meal, and 8 left over meals that need to be a combination of bone and muscles. You can see how feeding more whole prey will lower the other frankenprey meals.
Hope that made sense.
Glad you got pork hearts and liver, but like Katt said, You can also use a variety in muscle meat too. Don't want them to get sensitive to one type of protein and then having to introduce a new protein all over again.
I'm also on Facebook! My name is Jocelyn Martinez. My cover picture is chemistry related with my 2 ferts sleeping. You can send me msgs there. My phone will buzz and I'll answer (dance)
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Post by katt on Jan 26, 2014 20:32:26 GMT -5
Only thing I would add to that is that eggs are best fed whole. They are a very complete protein when fed WHOLE. Feeding the raw whites alone can cause problems if you feed a LOT, due to the high avidin content. Avidin is a protein that binds Biotin - a very important nutrient. However, it would take a lot of egg whites over a pretty significant period of time to cause a biotin deficiency. That being said, I do not recommend feeding just whites. Now egg Yolk is one of nature's richest sources of biotin. By feeding whole egg, you negate the effects of the avidin in the egg whites. If you feed only the yolk however, you are missing out on a lot of really good proteins and nutrients that are in the whites. Eggs are nature's little miracles. They are incredibly efficient structures that are designed to feed a growing animal and simultaneously eliminate that animal's waste. However, you are only going to get the maximum benefit of the egg if it is fed whole. As J said, the rule of thumb is no more than 1 egg per ferret every 3 days (so about 2 a week). If they are shedding you can feed a little bit more but watch their poops.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 26, 2014 21:35:46 GMT -5
Bones consist of all rabbit bones are okay (except the skull, but you don't have it, and all weight bearing bones have to be cut up), chicken/ turkey necks (smashed), lamb(quail, pork, turkey, chicken, goose, duck and rabbit) ribs, chicken feet with muscle meat on the side, and some cartilage. Good rule is if the bone is almost or is bare to add some muscle meat along with it. Some ferrets do not like eating ribs. If they feed ribs and the ferrets eat most to all of the bone, they can count it as bone in but if they can't eat it then it doesn't count as bone in. Organs.. here go to this thread: holisticferret60.proboards.com/thread/13628/defines-nutritional-organ-meatRemember that most organs will lead to loose dark tarry poops. Don't worry, its due to the high blood content in the organ and the bone will refirm up the stools back up to normal. Hope this helps!
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Post by katt on Jan 26, 2014 21:50:12 GMT -5
Yesterday they ate liver and hearts with egg yolk on it to make it more appetizing. I sprinkled about 1/4 shell powder just to keep them supplemented until I can get more meat with bone in it. Last night I went back to chicken wings (with skin on but cut up) because I needed to use them up and they love them. But I woke up to Strax choking on something. Not sure if it was bone or skin or what. I stayed still because I didn't want to startle him. He was wheezing badly and gagging and then made it over to the water and drank a to of water. It really scared me because its not the first time he has choked. Is there a way to make things more "choke proof" ? I'm kind of skittish after losing Baby and it makes me anxious!See my response above RE choking. Far more likely to happen on kibble. He probably had something stuck between his teeth or ate too fast and, as you saw, he resolved it on his own. ;)And there's nothing wrong with chicken wings, keep feeding those - you just need to get some other bones in there too. What do you normally order for a good bone in meal? Organs I can figure out. But the bone is my main concern. Like J said, any bone that is either small enough for them to eat, or can be smashed into small enough to eat pieces. Chicken wings, necks, backs, turkey wings, ribs, necks, Cornish Game Hen (great edible bone source), duck bones (leg and larger leg bones may need to be broken), Pork button bones, etc. Rabbit bones are great too. I noticed we are on opposite time zones (for the US anyway) so 4 hours a part I think. I will most likely post around 10 am here (eastern) on the week days and then possibly after 3 pm and then weekends get a little crazy. Jocelyn is on Eastern time, I'm AK Central so I am 4 hours behind both of you. I will try the photo again but in the next message so I don't accidentally delete my message again! They had more runny poop after eating the liver. That is totally normal after heart and organ meals due to the high blood content. They did that last time too. Is it ok to spread the liver out into multiple meals? No, I do NOT recommend this with multiple ferrets. If you have one ferret, you can do that because you know he is eating the food. With multiple ferrets however, feeding a mixed meal is not recommended - you will have no way to ensure that they are all getting proper balance. For example one ferret might not like liver as much and so he will pick around it and not get his liver requirements. Another ferret might LOVE heart so much that he picks it all out before the others get any/enough, making them all deficient on their heart. Make sense? The best method is to feed only one type of food at a time to ensure everyone is getting proper balance. It works well to follow up an organ or heart meal with a bone-in meal to help re-firm up poops. I have made a weekly chart that has what I am supposed to give them so I can checkit off as they get it. That way I can see it visually (I'm a visual thinker) and easily see what I am missing. Good! That will be good practice for making your menu (required for graduation). Can you please post your current weekly checklist so we can see it?
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Post by Deleted on Jan 27, 2014 9:57:23 GMT -5
Thanks for all of your input! Im lucky I have two of you! I haven't been posting on the FB page recently. Only here. But it is an especially crazy time for me with everything going on with my son. Hopefully we will resolve some of it soon.
I'm excited to try the rabbit today. I will let you know how it goes.
Question: how long is too long to leave meat out? Sometimes they leave some after the 12 hour feeding period. Should I throw that out or leave it if it smells ok? Heart: I had one meal heart written, so it is 1.5? And the organs I was just weighing 2oz liver and 2oz other and giving it until they reached that amount.
Thanks!
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Post by Deleted on Jan 27, 2014 10:05:57 GMT -5
I'm going to pick up my car and a doctor appt and then I'm going to read back over everything you guys wrote. Oh I also have to take my son to music. So might be this evening before I get back but I wanted to let you know I might have comments questions about what you wrote once I have more time to digest it!
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Post by Deleted on Jan 27, 2014 23:11:05 GMT -5
So we tried rabbit today! This time Dottie was all in and Strax was the one not going for it. He would take it out of my hand put it down and kind of gag like Dottie did with the turkey initially. I started with legs just to see what they would do. They left the bones so im guessing they must have been too hard to chew? We had lots going on today but all of the meat was eaten off the legs so Strax got over it at some point. I then sectioned off the chest and that part of the back along with the ribs. I cut the ribs so that they were easier to eat and then I crushed all of the bones in the other meat to make sure they were edible. Then I put a tablespoon of soup on it just to entice Strax a little more. They both dug in and seemed to be eating bones and all!
Does that sound ok?
So I have this whole rabbit thawed. Should I continue to feed the rabbit until it is gone or mix other meats in. I was always told not to re freeze meat once it had been frozen so that is the rules have followed. What do you typically do in this case where you get a whole frozen meat that had to be thawed before you could cut into it?
It's late here and another busy day with my son tomorrow. My car is fixed! So at least that's done! I'll let you know how they do with the rabbit over night!
Oh - and I will try to post my checklist tomorrow!
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Post by Deleted on Jan 28, 2014 2:57:52 GMT -5
how long is too long to leave meat out? Sometimes they leave some after the 12 hour feeding period. Should I throw that out or leave it if it smells ok?
Ground meat is good for 8-10 hrs, boneless chunks are good for 10-12 hrs although it depends on the thickness of the chunks. Finally meaty bones are good for 12-24 hrs. (Soups are good for 6-8 hr… just in case =) ) Sometimes, they’ll eat stinky meats sometimes they’ll leave them alone. But, they won’t eat anything that will harm them.
Heart: I had one meal heart written, so it is 1.5? And the organs I was just weighing 2oz liver and 2oz other and giving it until they reached that amount.
A healthy ferret on a frankenprey diet eats 1 meal every 12 hrs. So since they’re getting 2 meals a day (breakfast and dinner), that equal 14 meals per week. To my understanding, ferrets eating a frankenprey diet should eat: 65% muscle meat, 10% hearts, 10-15% Edible bone (meat-in-bone or bones with muscle attached or added on), 5% liver, 5% other organs. This all adds up to 95-100%. Not taking the amount a ferret eat, this equals to 7-11 (7-9 of these will bone-in meat meals—meaning bone with muscle meat still attached—like chicken wings. 2-4 meals will be only muscle. More on the bone-on meat soon.), 1.5 heart meals, 1.5 organ meals (half liver, half other organs), and finally 7-9 bone-in meat meals. As I stated earlier, 7-contain Bone with the muscle still attached. (These include chicken wings, chicken/ turkey necks, Ribs, and Cornish game hen and rabbit carcasses; things like chicken feet, legs (crushed), or any bare bones need muscle meat added.) I say 7-9 bone meals because it really depends on their poops. Too much bone will lead to dry looks stool and too little bone and you have watery stools. They need to eat enough to have normal looking poops. All this should equal 14 meals (a week). Not all ferrets eat the same amount of meats. For example one ferret prefers hearts over another and ferret#1 will eat 1.25 oz of hearts in one meal while the other eats 1.0 oz of hearts but both eat about 2 oz of muscle meat. It all depends on the ferret and the season, as they tend to eat more during one season and eat less during another. Ferret self-adjust when they eat.
So we tried rabbit today! This time Dottie was all in and Strax was the one not going for it. He would take it out of my hand put it down and kind of gag like Dottie did with the turkey initially. I started with legs just to see what they would do. They left the bones so im guessing they must have been too hard to chew?
Yay for rabbit! Awesome that Dottie dug in but, when introducing a new protein, it’s best to introduce it gradually so everyone is on the same place. You could do 75% of a known protein and 25% of the new protein. Mix it up so they can mistakenly eat a new protein. Keep increasing the new protein while decreasing the known one until everyone has accepted the new protein. This will ensure that everyone is still getting food into their systems. Regarding the bone try crushing it up to bite sizes and mixing it into the muscle meat. They’ll get “stuck” to the muscle and they’ll end up chewing on them eventually. We had lots going on today but all of the meat was eaten off the legs so Strax got over it at some point. I then sectioned off the chest and that part of the back along with the ribs. I cut the ribs so that they were easier to eat and then I crushed all of the bones in the other meat to make sure they were edible. Then I put a tablespoon of soup on it just to entice Strax a little more. They both dug in and seemed to be eating bones and all!
Does that sound ok?
Sounds great! Uncrushed bone might be something new and might not see it as food yet. In time they will. Good thing that you added some soup to introduce it. As soon as they’re both okay with eating rabbit and/or rabbit bone.. take the soup away. Don’t want them to depend on that soup all the time.
So I have this whole rabbit thawed. Should I continue to feed the rabbit until it is gone or mix other meats in. I was always told not to re freeze meat once it had been frozen so that is the rules have followed. What do you typically do in this case where you get a whole frozen meat that had to be thawed before you could cut into it?
You can most definite refreeze. Most ferrents will buy meats in bulk, section everything off, cut up into chunks, put into baggies or containers and freeze them until they’re ready to use them. When I fed commercial raw, I could buy 2 wks worth of food, chop everything up while it was slightly thawed out (enough for me to chop it up with a meat cleaver) and would put a day’s worth of food in Tupperware. I would thaw them out 30-45 mins before my guys ate.
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Post by katt on Jan 28, 2014 3:19:21 GMT -5
Sounds great J! All I have to add is another way to look at the heart and organ thing - just rewording exactly what J was saying. So say you have 2 ferrets, a small female that eats 1oz of food a day on average, and a large male that eats 4oz of food a day on average. They EACH need 10% organ every week. So you feed 2 ounces a week...what does that mean? Well the female eats 1oz day = 7oz a week. So 2oz of liver = 29%!!!! That is almost 3 times the amount of organs she needs for the week. Now the male eats 4oz a day, so that means 28oz in a week. So 2oz of liver for the male = 7% of his diet. Now he isn't getting enough organ! And that's not taking into account seasonal changes in appetite, or other ferrets in the business... This is why it is best to measure things in "meals." If they eat 14 meals a week, one and a half meals (1.5) is almost exactly 10% of their total diet. They will fluctuate in the amounts they eat meal to meal, day to day, season to season, and will be very different between ferrets. If you always give them one and a half meals of organ, it will inevitably always AVERAGE OUT to be ~10% of their total diet. Does that make sense? This is why it's really a pet peeve of mine that people get so hung up on numbers and weighing meats. You really can't depend on that because what each ferret eats is SO different. To give you an idea of what this would look like: Day 1: am: liver pm: heart Day 2: am: half heart, half kidney pm: chicken wings OR Day 1: am: half liver, half kidney and brains pm: heart Day 2: am: half heart, half liver pm: chicken wings Of course you will probably want to space the organ and heart meals out more for poop reasons, but that's a basic layout (2 slightly different variations) of 4 meals that will satisfy their weekly organ and heart needs. Then you need, as J said, 7-9 bone-in meals (bone-in meaning containing a significant amount of edible bone) total, and the rest are all boneless meats. Hope that all makes sense!
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Post by Deleted on Jan 28, 2014 3:19:24 GMT -5
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Post by Deleted on Jan 28, 2014 10:03:24 GMT -5
Ok great info once again! I am starting to copy and paste info into an app I have that allows you to journal in books with chapters so I have divided by subject; bone, organs, meal planning, etc. it helps me to go look at it all together. So last night I really crushed up those bones right in the meat. When I woke up it was all gone! And I thought I put a lot out there! So from here I am going to vary it back up with other meat. I still have the chicken and ground turkey so I will work on getting other meat too. Busy day (big sigh) but I do feel like we are on the right track here so big relief I will try to read through stuff again and get back to you tonight! Hope you both have a great day!
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Post by katt on Jan 28, 2014 18:07:01 GMT -5
That is a fantastic idea. It's good to keep track of things, especially because it can be a lot of info at first. That is fantastic that they took to the bones so well. I'll wait and let J comment on where to go from there. Meanwhile, what other meats do you have access to locally?
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Post by Deleted on Jan 29, 2014 0:23:54 GMT -5
That's great that they finally ate all of the crushed bone! Keep up the good job regarding bone. Gradually increase the size of the bones though so that eventually they'll recognize bone-in as food. The journal is a great idea! Keep track of this weeks am and pm meals and post it, so we'll be able to see how you're balancing out your meals. =)
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Post by Deleted on Jan 29, 2014 10:05:10 GMT -5
Hey guys I have a really bad migraine headache that started last night. Going to post later thanks
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Post by Deleted on Jan 29, 2014 15:53:04 GMT -5
No problem. Cold compress, light out, and something for your migraine. Feel better.
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