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Post by Deleted on May 25, 2014 11:11:51 GMT -5
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Post by gfountain on May 25, 2014 11:25:24 GMT -5
WOO HOO!!!! (sorry, forgot about the spreadsheet.. I could have done that myself)
Next step is to increase the size of those chunks and start giving him tastes of the heart and organs. Organs have a strong taste and sometimes have to be masked in soups (gradually adding more of the organs, less of the muscle meats), but let's try giving him some little chunks first. If we're lucky, he'll just eat them. Slinkee actually thought liver was candy, lol. He would inhale it almost before I got the dish on the shelf. Once he's eating hearts and organs, we can start building his weekly menu.
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Post by gfountain on May 25, 2014 11:29:34 GMT -5
Now if by tonight, you don't feel like he's had enough to eat, you can always add some of that soup back in. It's very common to have to back up a step or two throughout this process, so if he needs the soup don't withhold it. We don't want him to be too hungry.
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Post by Deleted on May 25, 2014 11:33:39 GMT -5
Aye, cap'n! I'll keep the soup on hand when feeding him tonight. Can I start with heart, or should I do liver? Or both? I'm not looking forward to slicing liver up lol.
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Post by gfountain on May 25, 2014 12:07:24 GMT -5
Probably heart.. not as strong. Oh, your liver is already pureed, isn't it? Maybe just spread a little of that with his chunks.
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Post by gfountain on May 26, 2014 15:44:20 GMT -5
Following posts copied from private messages for the benefit of anyone reading this thread.
Alyse
It did NOT want to let me reply to you! I commented in 2 other threads but when it came to the switching thread... nope! Then I replied to another PM and it went straight through - tried this one and it wouldn't even attempt to send!
Anywho, Ezzy did really well with his chunks this evening. He ate 1.8 oz (bringing him to 2.9 oz for the day) and didn't seem any more reluctant than he did with the soup. Tomorrow evening, I'll mix chunks of heart in and see how it goes. Is there any concern with giving him too much heart meat? I was going to just chop half a chicken heart up, and mix it with his thigh meat chunks.
gfountain
Yeah, that's a quirk of this forum. I did a lot of communicating with my mentor on FB because of it.
Good for Ezra! Is he eating better on his own? It really shouldn't take an hour of working with him to get him to eat , but 2.9 oz for the day is a good amount. Activity & poops are still good, right?
No, he can't have too much heart. Heart is considered a muscle meat, but it's special because of its taurine content. Taurine is an amino acid required for eye & heart health. It is water soluble, and excess will be expelled in their urine so they can't overdose on heart like they can on liver. Taurine is found in muscles that are used a LOT, so if you can't find heart, you can use the tongue of a ruminant. I have a hard time finding hearts, so I use a lot of beef tongue. My guys get the equivalent of 2-3 hearts per week. And dark meat has more taurine than white meat. You can also get a taurine supplement and give that with meals. It's actually a good idea to have the supplement on hand in case you can't get hearts or tongue for some reason.
And I'm probably repeating some of what I wrote in the switching thread, so sorry about that.
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Post by gfountain on May 26, 2014 15:46:12 GMT -5
Alyse
Nah I don't mind you repeating yourself. It's good reinforcement of knowledge.
He won't go up to the plate on his own. I think it's honestly his attention span more than anything, but yeah, it does take an hour (sometime two) to get him to eat. Especially with these chunks. It goes kinda like this:
1. Mommy puts everything in the bowl and weighs it.
2. Daddy takes Ezzy out and lets him play a bit while this happens.
3. 20 to 30 minutes later (food is room temp-ish and he's had some playtime) I pick him up and set him in front of the bowl.
4. He attempts to move away, I put some chunks/soup on his mouth and he reflexively licks at it, then begins to eat.
5. 30 seconds later or less, he pulls away.
6. I let him go.
7. I pick him back up a couple of minutes later and put more chunks/soup on his mouth.
8. Repeat steps 5 through 7, about 5 more times. He eats maybe 5 or 6 bites during this 10 or 15 minute period.
9. Begin letting him go less often, holding him by placing a hand firmly on his back while he eats. He struggles and gets more and more insistant on leaving each time. Normally I can get him to have 3 or 4 chunks each few minutes before letting him go.
10. After about 1 oz ( it seems to be the magic number) he will start picking stuff up with his mouth and dropping it, rubbing his head on the floor, whimpering.
11. We finally give up after 1 or 2 hours of struggling.
The videos I take are usually at the very beginning of feeding so that I can get on with feeding him after taking them. Sorry if you thought he was just walking up to the bowl and eating for himself. He's not done that yet. At first, he will definitely put his head down and begin eating once he's placed at the bowl, but that's only for 1 to 2 minutes, and then he needs to be more heavily coaxed.
I figured this wasn't really an issue since we're getting 3 oz in him like you mentioned. The first 1 oz each meal is much less of a problem and we can get him to eat that in 30 mins at most. It's anything more than that he seems to really put up a fight about. We just want him off kibble and if it means 2 hrs of working with him a day, that's fine. I don't think it's hurting him, he just seems to get tired after the first ounce.
Oh and I say he has more trouble eating with the chunks, because he wants to drag each bite out of the bowl and either stash it or eat it elsewhere... which is fine, but it means I'm manually replacing him in front of the bowl every single time he eats a piece, no matter how big.
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Post by gfountain on May 26, 2014 15:48:02 GMT -5
AlyseOKAY STRIKE EVERYTHING I JUST SAID. I was frustrated this morning, so I just left the bowl with him (2 oz., chicken chunks like in the last video - no soup, heart, or liver yet) and he sniffed at it without doing anything else and I was like "fine, you'll be extra hungry later then". I dyed my hair and came back to his room after about an hour, turned on the light, and he's standing in front of his bowl chewing, with a strip of chicken hanging from his mouth!! I was so shocked I said "oh... sorry..." and turned the lights back off and closed the door. Rofl. Anyway I guess he'll eat on his own then without issue so long as I don't stuff him full manually. *kicks self* gfountain
ROFL... I busted out laughing when I got to "oh sorry.. and turned the lights back off".. literally woke up my daughter & her friend who are trying to take a quick nap before we get back to work. Don't you just love it when they make a liar out of you! My kids have done that to me so many times... I'd message my mentor frantically "something's wrong, he's coughing and sneezing, they're not eating, they're not playing, pooping, whatever." Then 30 minutes later, whatever they were or weren't doing that worried me is over and they're back to acting like maniacs. (headwall) OK, so now that we know he'll eat on his own, don't spend too much time trying to stuff it down him. When starting something new, you'll want to watch to make sure he gets the new stuff and you may need to coax him for the first few bites, but except for that, just try to leave enough with him that there will always be 2 or 3 bites left by the time you serve the next meal. As long as there's still some left, you'll know he didn't go hungry. And ferrets generally don't overeat so you don't need to worry about that. He may be wising up to the fact that you're only going to be there for a little while, so he needs to play while he has the chance. Eating is something that can be done when he's alone. Slinkee learned that early on, and now he's taught Minnie to do the same. They'll always check to see what I'm serving, but unless it's something super special, they'll leave it and go play. Then they eat when I leave for work or shut them in for the night. Go ahead and try some hearts with him, but like I said, watch to make sure he's actually eating the heart pieces and not stashing them. Is he caged? It's easier to keep track of how much they're eating & how much they're stashing if they are confined to a smallish area like a cage or even just one room. I ALWAYS feed in the cage, but usually the door is open. Stashing was never a problem.. Slinks has been a neat-freak, wanting his food IN the dish, not beside the dish or anywhere else, but now he's decided that gizzards taste better under my daughter's bed - 3 days old!
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Post by gfountain on May 26, 2014 15:49:16 GMT -5
Alyse
I didn't even think that he would rather be playing with us and that's why he didn't want to eat... honestly I have so much fun with him that I feel like he only plays with me to be nice or out of pity. I am used to cats that would just as soon you leave them alone and stay out of their space unless you're feeding them... ferrets are sooo different!
Okay, I'll be sure to keep measuring food to see what he's eating each meal. He is caged when we're not around, so looking around for stashed bits is no problem. He did stash 3 pieces all the way on the top floor of his cage, and I left them there for now. I'll mix hearts in with chicken chunks for dinner tonight. Including the three stashed pieces, which couldn't have been more than 10 grams or so, there was a total of 1.5 oz missing!! This little brat has been acting like he doesn't know how to feed himself all this time!!! Lol!
End of private messages.
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Post by gfountain on May 26, 2014 16:00:53 GMT -5
Oh yes, ferrets are definitely different than cats. This morning when I was getting ready to leave for work, the fuzzies were still out and playing with my daughter. I stopped at the front door to holler for her to feed one of the dogs before she left the house and Minnie came running to me, sat on my shoe and wrapped all four little legs around my leg, begging me not to leave her. All the cats I ever had would arrogantly lift their heads to glare at me if I dared to bother them to say goodbye, lol.
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Post by Deleted on May 26, 2014 20:29:28 GMT -5
Aww, sweet little Minnie! You are lucky to have her! We mixed the hearts about 50/50 with chicken chunks, mostly because we did not have more chicken chunks already thawed. I went to clean his litter pan and came back to find this... he did not even mind me sitting there holding the camera in his face. NO prompting, NO holding him in place or even introducing to him that the food was in the cage. He just walked over and chowed down! CAN I GET A HALLELUJAH!!!
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Post by gfountain on May 26, 2014 23:06:00 GMT -5
I do believe it's time for this boy to move on. WOO HOO!!! (dance) Did he eat all of it?
So keep enlarging those chunks and get some kind of small bone-in meat to start on. Chicken wing tips, or cornish game hen wings are excellent starter bone. We'll start introducing the bone as soon as you have it available. You will also want to try him on liver and see if he'll eat it as is, or if you're going to need to hide it in soup to start with.
Now that he's eating his chicken well with no adverse reactions, you'll need to find another protein to start. You can use pork, beef, turkey, lamb, whatever. You said you didn't want to use the larger animals, so whatever you can find. You'll need to eventually have at least 3 proteins in his menu. I recommend not buying in large amounts just yet. I'd hate for you to buy 10 pounds of something just to find that he hates it.
Our goal for right now is to build a balanced menu for Ezzy and make sure you know what you're doing with the frankenprey, then we'll start replacing meals with the whole prey until he's entirely on whole prey.
How's his output? Still runny or getting better?
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Post by gfountain on May 26, 2014 23:07:19 GMT -5
Oh, and for future reference, if you don't have meat thawed, you can just toss him some frozen chunks to try. Sometimes they like meatsicles.
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Post by Deleted on May 27, 2014 7:41:51 GMT -5
Did he eat all of it?I left him with 3.2 oz (50/50 chicken chunks and heart chunks) and this is all that was left! (bounce) I set his chicken thighs to thaw and for some reason they are all still frozen together. He got a popsicle stick of soup, and an ounce of heart chunks this morning. We'll start introducing the bone as soon as you have it available.I can pick up both chicken liver to try with him (since the beef liver is mushy and we want to steer away from beef anyhow), as well as a couple of CGHs to give him the wings after work today. I assume I am not going to just set the wing in his cage at this point, so what do I do with it? Just mash it with my meat hammer into 3 or 4 pieces? He's not yet eating finger-sized chunks of chicken thigh, so should I try him with thicker meat first or do you think he's good to get the bones already? I recommend not buying in large amounts just yet.I totally understand and agree with the logic behind this, but I'd like to elaborate on our situation and get your feedback. The proteins we want to feed eventually are: - rabbit - online only - mice - online for cheap, or we can spend a bit more to get them at pet stores. - quail - online only - guinea pigs - online only - CGH / chicken - grocery stores When I say "online only" I mean we have really called and been to every asian market and pet store in a 50 mile radius. So, as you can see, we can only find 2 of our 5 preferred proteins without making an online purchase, and if we do that, we of course want to order quite a bit at once to get the most out of our shipping money. I know you don't feed whole prey, so this may not be something you've had to consider, but what are your thoughts? I don't know how common it is for a ferret to just totally reject a protein, but if it's somewhat common then we'll spend a little extra to just get one or two of everything before going all in. Also, as another note, we are effectively kinda broke as far as large purchases go until the 13th of June. So if we ARE getting a lot of anything, it'll need to be around then, and that's going to be a little while. In the meantime, I'd like to try and move forward with what we've got for now. We can do mice and CGHs for him for the time being. We do have access to ADULT mice, as well as to the organless CGH's that they sell at grocery stores. We have been unable to find them with organs in (even online). Soooo, what is our plan for now? Buy chicken liver and CGH at store, chop up chicken liver first to see if he'll take it? Is 50/50 liver and chicken chunks alright? Also let me know how to prepare the CGH wings and we can get started on that... How's his output? Still runny or getting better?Well, his poos are still fairly runny, but this is really just due to him eating JUST chicken thigh and heart. I gave the soup this morning because I'm hoping the eggshells will get him a little firmer for now. They seem like normal poops for what we've been putting in him. Activity and weight have been very good. I don't know if you caught this, but yesterday he ate 4.1 oz of food. On his own. Maybe he just wanted to be left alone to eat in the first place, lol.
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Post by gfountain on May 27, 2014 10:18:47 GMT -5
I only have a couple of minutes right now, so I'll just address a couple of things now and get back to you on the rest. On that wing, cut off the end section (to the first joint) and just give it to him. See what he does with it. The tip is pretty soft bone and it's possible that he may just take right to it. He most likely won't know what to do with it at first, so you may need to actually put it in his mouth or make some little cuts in it so he gets a taste of the meat. Liver - 50/50 is fine.. working up to 100% liver though. Same as with hearts. You'll also need one other organ. Regarding poops - runny is normal with what he's eating. If you're concerned about the poops, you can add a little eggshell to his chunks. 1/2 tsp. eggshell to 8 oz meat. Or you can do what I do.. I keep my eggshell in a salt shaker and just sprinkle whenever they need it. So if they haven't eaten all their bones & their next meal is muscle, I'll sprinkle the muscle. I also sprinkle the organs because I don't like cleaning up liver or kidney poops. OK... hope that got the immediate questions. Busy today with graduation stuff, so I'll get back to you later. And 4.1 oz! Way to go, Ezra!!
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