Switching to whole food

[Kate & Nate]

Hi everyone! My name is Kate and my fiancée and I adopted our furry little ferret Rico about 8 months ago. He was 12 weeks old when we got him from the pet store. Recently we discovered feeding with whole food like chicken and even mice. Rico has always had a diet of Marshall's ferret food since we got him. But after research and reading some of y'all's stories I have seen many similarities to Rico such as excessive pooping, bad odor, etc. So my fiancée and I have decided to switch Rico over to chicken and whole food. But the problem is. I have no idea where to even begin. Here are some of our questions: what kind of meat do you feed ferrets? How do you begin the transition? What should I look out for when I begin the switch? How long before we see a change in Rico's bowel movements? And if there is any other information, hints or tips to help us begin this transition please let us know! Thank y'all for all the help and soon Rico will be a whole food eating ferret! (:

[Deleted]

Hi and Welcome to the HFF. (wave) If you choose to join the forum, after 15 posts, you can sign up for a mentor. A mentor will help walk you thru the switch and keep you on the right nutritional path. In order to assure that you meet their dietary needs, you will want to do some reading and have a menu plan that offers at least 3 proteins and assures that it include organs and bone. You will want to learn about Taurine, Choline, Omega 3's and Calcium, and why ferrets need them. I'm not a mentor, but there are some wonderful ferrents here, who are mentors and had alot of experience with switching. Your Rico is still young, ferrets tend to imprint on their food and the younger ones seem to switch a little easier A fun benefit is grapetails! Raw fed ferrets (and some on good quality kibble) will have tails that smell like grape Koolaid. My baby Mika even had grape scented urine. Good Luck and hope to see you around the forum.

[Sherry]

Hi Kate So glad to see you and your SO have decided to make the raw journey for your little one! Please join the forum proper so you can start asking all the questions you need to. You will see a "pending approval" notice. I do those every morning.
So- to start. Here is a basic balanced menu along with many of the meats they can have:
holisticferret60.proboards.com/thread/146/meat-bone-organ-weekly-menu
Here are our switches from start to finished menu and graduation from our program:
holisticferret60.proboards.com/board/55/archives
Here is a good bit of reading about raw diets if you are interested:
holisticferret60.proboards.com/thread/124/recommended-reading-natural-diet-newbies
Poorps will change with first meal, . Smell takes a good deal longer as their bodies have to detox, and it will actually get worse before it gets better.