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Post by katt on Aug 13, 2014 0:13:52 GMT -5
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Post by katt on Aug 16, 2014 19:32:22 GMT -5
How is little Zin doing?
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Post by katt on Aug 24, 2014 1:48:26 GMT -5
Checking in
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Post by katt on Sept 4, 2014 3:03:57 GMT -5
Got lost in my messages:
"Hey...just a quick update here because I don't want you to think I'm ignoring you. My grandma fell a week ago and she's dying right now (hospice worker said she maybe has 24-48 if that) so I'm stressed out and trying to figure out flying home. Zin is still doing good though..on soup with slivers of beef he has a lot of energy. I need to weigh him. Last weight was holding steady at 2 lbs 3 oz. Lola is doing good just eating the soup with Zin. She looks SO healthy. Her fur is so soft and shiny and beautiful and her eyes seem clearer. I can def tell a diff since she was on kibble. Zins fur hasn't turned nice like hers yet. I started brushing Zins teeth.
I just made a huge batch of soup. (The recipe times 8) and pulled out stuff to make another huge batch so I can freeze a bunch for when I have to go to the funeral to make it easy on whoever will be watching them. Might be my fiancé not sure if he can come."
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Post by brittles888 on Sept 5, 2014 2:16:12 GMT -5
1. Ferret's name:Lola 2. Ferret's weight:1 lb 1.5 oz 3. Ferret has eaten "X" amount on average per meal. 1-2 ounces of soup and also meals of muscle chunks or half chicken hearts or chicken livers 4. Stools on various proteins. 5. Activity levels: her energy has come up. She's more crazy and playful than she was before. Her coat looks really good too. She looks very healthy. 6. Weekly menu:soup and some meals of chunks
1. Ferret's name:Zin 2. Ferret's weight:2lb 4 oz (up another ounce! He's getting a little belly back) 3. Ferret has eaten "X" amount on average per meal. 1-2 ounces of soup 4. Stools on various proteins... 5. Activity levels: very high he's been a crazy ferret lately...playing wild all over for hours 6. Weekly menu: I've just been giving him the soup (the high fat soup as much as he would eat) and he's been hogging it down. The past few days I have added slivers back.
I'm here. Sorry..everything fell apart with my Grandma dying. I did keep up on getting Zin's weight up though and he's up to 2.4. He's very energetic too. I had just been feeding him as much fatty soup as he would eat. I put slivers back in and he ate them at first, but the past few days he's gotten picky again. He will only eat a couple bites and then want to run off. If I hand him the slivers he will eat them otherwise he won't touch the plate of food. I'm worried he's goign to turn into one of those ferrets who won't eat unless you feed them by hand. (I've read about a few of those..ha.) He'll eat the soup by himself but wants me to hand him the slivers.
Lola is still doing good.
That vet that stayed at my house said it was just tartar on his teeth not a cavity or anything so I"ve been brushing them with just the dog tooth brush every few days. He still favors the other side of this mouth when he chews though. That's prob why the tartar was building up on the other side.
Anyway, should I just keep doing the soup and slivers? I will stop the soup with Lola and just get her back on only chunks. I just saw the info you posted about the one extra meal half heart half liver.
Oh, I got some gizzards at the store. (I think I texted you I found some kidney too.) What do gizzards count as? Muscle or organ? I don't even know exactly what they are.
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Post by katt on Sept 5, 2014 3:20:34 GMT -5
1. Ferret's name:Lola 2. Ferret's weight:1 lb 1.5 oz 3. Ferret has eaten "X" amount on average per meal. 1-2 ounces of soup and also meals of muscle chunks or half chicken hearts or chicken livers 4. Stools on various proteins. 5. Activity levels: her energy has come up. She's more crazy and playful than she was before. Her coat looks really good too. She looks very healthy. 6. Weekly menu:soup and some meals of chunks
1. Ferret's name:Zin 2. Ferret's weight:2lb 4 oz (up another ounce! He's getting a little belly back) 3. Ferret has eaten "X" amount on average per meal. 1-2 ounces of soup 4. Stools on various proteins... 5. Activity levels: very high he's been a crazy ferret lately...playing wild all over for hours 6. Weekly menu: I've just been giving him the soup (the high fat soup as much as he would eat) and he's been hogging it down. The past few days I have added slivers back. Good - how are their poops? How is Zin doing with the slivers being added back in? Are you still hand feeding him (with the slivers too)? I'm here. Sorry..everything fell apart with my Grandma dying. I did keep up on getting Zin's weight up though and he's up to 2.4. He's very energetic too. I had just been feeding him as much fatty soup as he would eat. I put slivers back in and he ate them at first, but the past few days he's gotten picky again. He will only eat a couple bites and then want to run off. If I hand him the slivers he will eat them otherwise he won't touch the plate of food. I'm worried he's goign to turn into one of those ferrets who won't eat unless you feed them by hand. (I've read about a few of those..ha.) He'll eat the soup by himself but wants me to hand him the slivers. He's just being a brat. lol You may well have to hand feed for a while, that is often just a part of the switch unfortunately. BUT the plus side is it fosters a deeper bond and you WILL be able to wean him back off of hand feeding. Lola is still doing good.
That vet that stayed at my house said it was just tartar on his teeth not a cavity or anything so I"ve been brushing them with just the dog tooth brush every few days. He still favors the other side of this mouth when he chews though. That's prob why the tartar was building up on the other side. Good on the tooth brushing. Once they will eat bones you shouldn't need to do that anymore. It wouldn't hurt to brush Lola too until then. For the chewing it sounds like it is mostly habit now. Try holding the food on that side and making him chew on that side so he can work those muscles back up. Anyway, should I just keep doing the soup and slivers? I will stop the soup with Lola and just get her back on only chunks. I just saw the info you posted about the one extra meal half heart half liver. Keep doing the slivers. I am going to leave Lola up to you but here are the 2 options you can pick from and the pros/cons.... 1.) Keep Lola going at the same pace as Zin, let Zin set the pace since he is the stubborn one. Pro is you only have to make food one way since they will both be eating the same thing. Con is Lola is being held back by picky Zin. 2.) [Honestly this would be my preference] Get Lola moving! We can start pushing her forward to bigger chunks and onward, leaving her food in the cage during the day. Meanwhile, you will be hand feeding Zin to get him to catch up. The pro of this is Lola will be moving forward and she may provide enough peer pressure for Zin with the food in the cage to help him move forward too. It will allow Lola to move forward and may help prod Zin along too. The con of this is you will have to hand feed Zin multiple times a day to make sure that he eats enough (at least until you can see him going at Lola's food in the cage on his own). You will also have to prepare 2 different "types" of meals (Zin's and Lola's), which really at this point is just cutting 2 different sized muscle chunks. Honestly, if you are going to be hand feeding Zin anyways to try to move him forward with the slivers and his picky ways, then you might as well do this route IMO. BUT it is up to you and what you feel able to handle. Oh, I got some gizzards at the store. (I think I texted you I found some kidney too.) What do gizzards count as? Muscle or organ? I don't even know exactly what they are.Gizzards are a muscle meat - great for the teeth though as they are very tough and full of connective tissue. Kidneys are GREAT. Try to get your organs up to half liver, half kidney. I'm very sorry about your Grandma. Hang in there - time brings healing and dulls the pain.
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Post by brittles888 on Sept 7, 2014 2:50:33 GMT -5
Hello! I haven't been paying attention to the poops. I've just been reaching back into the dark corner where the litter box is and scooping. I'll start watching again so I can update you on that. The few poops they did that were in the house and not in the box were half solid. (I have litter boxes around the house they mostly use but there are a few corners they love to choose that I can't put a litter box in...like right by the front door and in front of the kitchen cabinets. I've been meaning to just put paper towels down in those areas when they are out playing so if they go poop or pee there it catches it. Or I guess I could put a box there when they are out. I just didn't want to encourage that spot. If I see them going to that spot and backing up I grab them and stick them in a box. But I don't always catch it. Anyway, I'll start watching the poops.) I gave Zin one meal and locked him in a separate area of the cage and left him to eat, and later I came back and all the slivers were licked clean of soup. Later that day after the slivers were gone but Lola might have ate them. I just gave him another meal of slivers and soup and locked him in there and he ate maybe a 1/4 of it and it looked like he ate the slivers in that portion too. (A quarter of the plate was clean.) But that was only about 3/4 of an ounce which seems like a small meal. I've given Lola chunks the past few days without soup. I've been putting her food on the bottom of the cage in the normal food spot (I have a 3 level ferret nation cage) and I put Zin's on the top level and pull the ladder up so he can't go down and has to eat. It's dark up there (I have curtains around the cage to make it dark inside when they are sleeping.) (I didn't want Alaska light to mess them up.) Zin normally took his chunks up to that top dark part anyway which was why I've been putting the food up there. I'm just gonna pull him out and feed him on my lap like you suggested before instead. And I'll take your second suggestion and just keep Lola moving along. She's so good. It really is encouraging being able to see the change in her since the raw. I don't know if you saw the video on my facebook page but I took it two days ago of them playing in a bag so you can take a look at it and see how they are looking right now if you want. Is my switch taking like a ridiculously long time? I don't know how long it usually takes but it seems like we've been at this forever. I'm not sure what's normal. It makes me wonder how long it will take to get them to eating a whole mouse.
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Post by brittles888 on Sept 7, 2014 2:59:21 GMT -5
Oh, also, I'm looking at that rodent pro sight you told me about previously and it seems like they are having some sales and it says flat rate shipping $35/box. (Maybe not to Alaska though.) If I were to do an order what would you suggest I get? I would def want to do that route and get used to seeing them eat mice before actually breeding my own. Baby steps.
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Post by katt on Sept 7, 2014 13:48:30 GMT -5
I haven't been paying attention to the poops. I've just been reaching back into the dark corner where the litter box is and scooping. I'll start watching again so I can update you on that. The few poops they did that were in the house and not in the box were half solid. (I have litter boxes around the house they mostly use but there are a few corners they love to choose that I can't put a litter box in...like right by the front door and in front of the kitchen cabinets. I've been meaning to just put paper towels down in those areas when they are out playing so if they go poop or pee there it catches it. Or I guess I could put a box there when they are out. I just didn't want to encourage that spot. If I see them going to that spot and backing up I grab them and stick them in a box. But I don't always catch it. Anyway, I'll start watching the poops.) I'd put a box by the door personally. They ALWAYS poop there so I just always have a box near the door. Behind the door works fine you just have to move it when they go back in the cage so you can use the door. lol Saves the carpets though! I gave Zin one meal and locked him in a separate area of the cage and left him to eat, and later I came back and all the slivers were licked clean of soup. Later that day after the slivers were gone but Lola might have ate them. I just gave him another meal of slivers and soup and locked him in there and he ate maybe a 1/4 of it and it looked like he ate the slivers in that portion too. (A quarter of the plate was clean.) But that was only about 3/4 of an ounce which seems like a small meal. I've given Lola chunks the past few days without soup. I've been putting her food on the bottom of the cage in the normal food spot (I have a 3 level ferret nation cage) and I put Zin's on the top level and pull the ladder up so he can't go down and has to eat. It's dark up there (I have curtains around the cage to make it dark inside when they are sleeping.) (I didn't want Alaska light to mess them up.) Zin normally took his chunks up to that top dark part anyway which was why I've been putting the food up there. I'm just gonna pull him out and feed him on my lap like you suggested before instead. And I'll take your second suggestion and just keep Lola moving along. She's so good. It really is encouraging being able to see the change in her since the raw. Sounds like a plan - hopefully Lola will give Zin a little peer pressure too. I would definitely hand feed him to get him working on those chunks more. I don't know if you saw the video on my facebook page but I took it two days ago of them playing in a bag so you can take a look at it and see how they are looking right now if you want. Aww <3 So sweet. Lola looks amazing, she is nice and beefy! Zin certainly looks a lot better too - his hips look like they have filled back out. That is great. Now we just have to get the stubborn little sh*t back on board! Don't worry he WILL get there, you just have to out-stubborn him. Is my switch taking like a ridiculously long time? I don't know how long it usually takes but it seems like we've been at this forever. I'm not sure what's normal. It makes me wonder how long it will take to get them to eating a whole mouse. Yes, it is taking a long time but there is a reason. A few reasons actually. You have had a lot of personal-life stuff come up, which has led to multiple set backs (e.g. them being put back on kibble by bf). Also, there have been several periods of inactivity in the switch. If I don't have frequent, consistent feedback, then I can't tell you what to do next and what new tricks to try, and progress is going to be much, much slower. The switches that move the fastest are almost always the ones in which the ferrent posts in their switching thread at least once a day because then there is constant feedback. On TOP of that, you have a rather stubborn little turd on your hands named Zin. Stubborn ferrets take longer to switch. They ALL absolutely CAN be switched, like I said it is simply a matter of out-stubborning him. But things do also tend to move a lot faster with more frequent communication.
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Post by brittles888 on Sept 8, 2014 3:57:52 GMT -5
So Zin was totally difficult today. I tried to feed him on my lap but he wouldn't stay. So I put him up in the top and he looked at the food but then ran to the area of the cage where I had been handing him the slivers and chunks and stared at me, waiting for me to feed him. I tried to hold the chunks by the plate and he wouldn't take it there. If I gave them to him he would daintily take it in his mouth and go hide in the corner and eat it. We got through the plate that way but then he wouldn't eat the soup left on the plate. I put some on my finger and he ate it all. So I put my fingers IN THE SOUP ON THE PLATE and he licked ABOVE WHERE THEY WERE TOUCHING THE PLATE to totally avoid the plate and only get the food off of my fingers..he is being a total brat. Lola is good though, chowing down on her chunks. Their poop looked a little runny today, like half solid. I'll try to add more egg shell. And let me know what I should order from the frozen rodent supplier. I want to get a box but I don't know what's best for starting them. Oh, and I want your advice. I am leaving to go to Idaho and Florida (yearly family visit for Andrew and I) for 3 weeks in October. I am having a ferret sitter watch the ferrets and dogs. I'm wondering how to best deal with the food while I'm gone. I don't want to ask them to hand feed Zin you know. I don't want to set him back either though. I would like to just set up zip lock bags for morning and night for the whole time so they can just pull them out of the freezer and put them out. I just don't want Zin to not be eating. Any advice?
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Post by katt on Sept 13, 2014 4:41:47 GMT -5
Did you decide anything on the whole prey or grinds order?
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Post by brittles888 on Sept 16, 2014 4:34:53 GMT -5
As you know from our text conversation, I have a severe flu virus right now so I have not been dealing with the ferrets. They have been getting soup right out of the bag and that's all. I'm still contagious so I can't hand feed Zin.
I made more soup tonight and made it super thick. It's the consistency of thick cookie dough. I had ground turkey and ground heart so I set some of that aside and just stirred the rest into the think soup, so it wasn't completely blended and would have different textures. Then I balled up some turkey and some ground beef heart and put it on top of the soup in their cage. Zin actually ate one of the turkey balls and half a heart ball. Then he started staring at me like he does when he wants me to feed him. Which I couldn't. So I let him run off. I just put him back in there and he sniffed the plate then went and crawled into his hammock. He hasn't eaten since breakfast so I'm sure he's hungry. I'll see if the food is gone when I get up in the AM. (There are two plates of it, one on the bottom for Lola and one on the top for Zin and they both are a large serving so I should be able to tell if he ate or not or if it was just Lola, even if she wanders up to the top and eats off of his. Like, if everything is almost gone in the morning there's no way Lola would have eaten it all.
And 2 weeks till departure. I am going to wait a few days still before handling them to be safe, but I'll keep monitoring the food intake. And hopefully they will just eat this really thick half grind soup.
I'll weigh them when I'm not contagious anymore too.
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Post by katt on Sept 17, 2014 2:15:29 GMT -5
Zin is a troublemaker that's for sure, but hopefully after your trip there won't be any more interruptions for a while and we can push forward. Add about 1tsp fo ground meat to the thinner raw soup (whatever thickness he will willingly eat) and mix it in well. If they don't notice, then the next meal add another tsp. As soon as you get to a point where they might be noticing slow down to adding another tsp every day or three so they have more time to get used to the gradual change in texture. Whatever the thickest amount of grind:soup ratio is that they will both WILLINGLY eat before you leave is what you should leave for the pet sitter.
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Post by katt on Sept 30, 2014 20:56:21 GMT -5
Message from Brittany: Hello! I'm sorry! I meant to get on my computer and update before I left but I had a thousand things to do before leaving to prepare for new tenants moving in and our house sitters/pet sitters and I didn't get it done. I've rode the ferry yesterday and am at the airport now. I'll update you for the moment, I made 4 weeks worth of soup and froze it and portioned it per meal for the house sitter (it took forever) Lola was still being weird about eating the thick soup...she would eat chunks but not thick soup. :/ ugh my difficult babies. I didn't want to burden the pet sitter with different meals or having to watch their intake so I just made medium consistency soup and told her if they aren't eating to add a little water. So I'll be gone until oct 23rd.
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Post by katt on Nov 6, 2014 11:21:28 GMT -5
How was your trip and where are the fuzz at?
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