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Post by Deleted on Oct 13, 2014 16:07:08 GMT -5
Bea's bone meal came in the mail today. Do the same portions apply as with egg shell powder? Can you tell me the proportions again?
I'll buy some chicken wings this week and see how she does with that.
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Post by katt on Oct 14, 2014 2:25:54 GMT -5
Yep same as eggshell. 1/4 - 1/2tsp per 10oz of meat. Start with 1/4 and increase if needed to firm up poops. Any luck with the wings?
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Post by Deleted on Oct 22, 2014 7:38:55 GMT -5
Hello, Bea crunched some wing tips! She kind of choked on them a bit, but didn't seem to bother her really. I weighed her and she is 1 lb. 6oz. After I started her on the raw diet. she was 1lb. 10oz. Should I be worried? Her appetite is great and she is eating like 4 meals a day. I always leave a meal in her cage now and it's always eaten when I get home which I'm really pleased about and over night too. Im worried her weight might be an indicatian that she needs another implant. Her first one was done 1-31-14. I think I will make an appointment soon. This might seem high maintenance but now that she is eating the slivers without soupie and liver and heart by themselves, can you give me a week meal schedule. Like she should get so many oz. of heart/week, liver/week, muscle meat/week, wing tips/week... Etc. Or something like that. I want to make sure I'm getting the proportions right.
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Post by katt on Oct 22, 2014 14:22:15 GMT -5
Bea crunched some wing tips! She kind of choked on them a bit, but didn't seem to bother her really. I weighed her and she is 1 lb. 6oz. After I started her on the raw diet. she was 1lb. 10oz. Should I be worried? Her appetite is great and she is eating like 4 meals a day. I always leave a meal in her cage now and it's always eaten when I get home which I'm really pleased about and over night too.
Im worried her weight might be an indicatian that she needs another implant. Her first one was done 1-31-14. I think I will make an appointment soon.Yaay! (dance) Good job Bea! It will take some practice for her to get the whole eating bone thing down, but now that she is crunching them she should really start moving forward. You are doing a great job. If she is eating fine I wouldn't be too concerned about the weight loss, but I would definitely consider getting her in for another implant. Implants for preventing AD are done yearly, but implants for treating AD should be done every 6-9 months - which it sounds like she is coming up on. If she continues to lose weight, let me know and you may consider a vet check. How is she doing poop and energy wise? This might seem high maintenance but now that she is eating the slivers without soupie and liver and heart by themselves, can you give me a week meal schedule. Like she should get so many oz. of heart/week, liver/week, muscle meat/week, wing tips/week... Etc. Or something like that. I want to make sure I'm getting the proportions right. Yep! Right around when we start getting bone into the mix is usually when I start working on menus. So this is actually where YOU come in. I will give you the basic criteria, and then you come up with a menu. If it needs any adjusting, I will let you know. That way you learn how to balance and make adjustments. So EACH week she needs to get 10% heart, 10% organs (preferably half liver, half other organs), and 7-9 bone-in meals. Bone-in meals should contain significant amounts of Edible bones so stuff like wings, necks, Cornish game hen, chicken back, etc. Most poultry bones are good eating size, though the larger weight bearing bones need to be smashed open even for good chewers. On a 2-meal a day schedule, they get 14 meals a week. You can group her smaller meals into AM and PM "meals." So AM meal is breakfast and everything she eats during the day, and PM is dinner and everything she eats during the night. So with that in mind every week she should get: 7-9 bone-in meals (more or less based on poops - poops too soft means she needs more bone, poops too hard means she needs less) 1.5 meals of heart 1.5 meals of organ - it is generally easiest to combine those two half meals so you get one meal of organs, one meal of hearts, and one meal that is half organs, half heart. You can mix and match however you please though as long as it comes out to 10%. I do not generally work with set ounces because each ferret is so different. If we say "2oz of liver a week" it just doesn't work that way. If a large male eats 4oz a day (28oz a week) then 2oz is only 7% of his diet and he will be deficient. Vs if a small female eats 1oz a day (7oz a week) then 2oz of liver is almost 30% of her diet! She would be getting almost 3x the amount of liver she should which could lead to vitamin A toxicity. The key is the percentages! Doing it by meal, it will always work out to the same proportion/percent of the diet. IF you really want to work with set ounces, then the best thing to do is weigh each meal before and after and figure out on average how much she eats per week, then figure out what 10% of that is and use that for your heart and organ amounts. The problem with that is you will have to recheck how much she is eating on a very regular basis as it will change season to season.
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Post by katt on Oct 22, 2014 14:22:34 GMT -5
Here is an example menu if that helps:
Monday am: edible bone in meat Monday pm: edible bone in meat Tuesday am: edible bone in meat Tuesday pm: muscle meat Wednesday am: edible bone in meat Wednesday pm: heart Thursday am: edible bone in meat Thursday pm: edible bone in meat Friday am: edible bone in meat Friday pm: ½ heart + ¼ liver + ¼ other organ Saturday am: edible bone in meat Saturday pm: muscle meat Sunday am: edible bone in meat Sunday pm: ½ liver + ½ other organ
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Post by Deleted on Oct 23, 2014 12:13:56 GMT -5
This is great, I was wondering about the heart and liver, I was worried about proportions. It sounds a little bit tricky. But I get the schedule, so I will go by that. Another thing that is tricky is measuring out the bone meal and mixing it equally in with the meat slivers. I can tell when I get it right when her poops are more formed. I noticed a really black puddle of poo that worried me but, it was around the time I fed her a liver and heart meal.
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Post by katt on Oct 23, 2014 15:08:02 GMT -5
Heart and organ meals will cause dark, loose stools due to the high blood content of the meat. That is entirely normal. And yes, poops are the best indicator for bones. The balance can be tricky but the more you do it the easier it gets and it eventually becomes second nature. That's why we have everyone create multiple menus through the switch and work together on making adjustments until you feel more comfortable with blancing and making adjustments as needed. Then once she is eating full frankenprey (and whole prey if you continue that route) and you have the hang of balancing, you create a final menu to graduate the program. Sooooo when you have time, please make your first menu. How is she doing with the small bones?
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Post by katt on Oct 23, 2014 15:08:24 GMT -5
And I love that picture, she is sooo cute!
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Post by Deleted on Oct 26, 2014 16:46:08 GMT -5
Do I have to worry about bone shards? Some of the splinters looked dangerous Thats mostly from me smashing them up. It seems like she is getting anywhere from 2-4oz. of meat slivers a day. I'm still trying to wrap my head around how to figure out how much heart and liver each week. I think I just need to figure out how much she eats/week, weigh each meal like you said. I need to take another trip to the town that has a better selection of meat to try to find a cornish hen. At least get more chicken wings.
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Post by katt on Oct 26, 2014 18:06:58 GMT -5
If by weight is easiest for you then do that. Figure out how much she eats in a week and whatever that number is, divide it by 10 to get 10% and feed that amount for heart and for organs. Another approach is to give her one and a half meals every week of heart, and one and a half meals every week of organs - 3 meals total. The bone pieces are typically fine. The ONLY time they become a problem is if they are too small to swallow easily but not big enough to force them to chew - and I have only heard of a very few ferrets who had trouble there and it seems to always be lazy ferrets who inhaled their food. If they are so small that she isn't chewing them any, try smashing them up a little bit less so she has to chew them.
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Post by katt on Nov 6, 2014 11:21:12 GMT -5
Keeping this in my feed
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Post by katt on Nov 7, 2014 21:23:36 GMT -5
Keeping in my feed
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Post by Deleted on Nov 10, 2014 21:28:32 GMT -5
Hello Bea is doing good. She is of course being lazy about eating her cut up wing tips. But she is eating some, so that's good. Other than that, her vet has to wait for the supplier of the Suprelorin to get it back in stock, so looks like Bea has to wait until the end of Nov. early Dec. to get her new implant. I think she def. needs it. Her weight is down and her winter coat seems thin, unless it's not all the way in yet...
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Post by katt on Nov 10, 2014 23:41:38 GMT -5
Hello Bea is doing good. She is of course being lazy about eating her cut up wing tips. But she is eating some, so that's good. Other than that, her vet has to wait for the supplier of the Suprelorin to get it back in stock, so looks like Bea has to wait until the end of Nov. early Dec. to get her new implant. I think she def. needs it. Her weight is down and her winter coat seems thin, unless it's not all the way in yet... haha Silly girl. At least it's a start though and she IS making progress. Keep pushing her on those bone bits and she will get there. Yeah that sucks about the Des. Any idea how long the backup is going to be? So many ferrets need that, it's a pretty crappy situation. It definitely sounds like she needs it. Can your vet do monthly Lupron until the Des gets in? It isn't ideal, but it may be better than nothing.
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Post by katt on Nov 15, 2014 6:50:34 GMT -5
Bumping to keep in my thread
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