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Post by Deleted on Oct 30, 2014 21:41:40 GMT -5
Yay! (dance) I can't believe we've made so much progress already. Travis is here with me now and he's glad the hard work is starting to pay off. Baby girl is in sleeping-not-dead mode, so I'll whisk her away tomorrow for weighing before breakfast.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 31, 2014 11:40:01 GMT -5
:happyhalloween:
So we weighed baby girl when she first woke up this morning. She was shivering pretty ferociously, and came in at 1 pound, 8.3 ounces, although the scale wavered a bit.
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Post by gfountain on Oct 31, 2014 12:33:45 GMT -5
Good weight.. she's gained a few ounces. Remind me how old she is. I could look it up, but I'm lazy.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 1, 2014 13:12:48 GMT -5
Me too she's 4 years old. Time for the Poopdate! Last I checked, her poo looked better. Instead of being so runny and dark, it was a better formed, although still a little wet-looking. The eggshell powder made a big difference; she seems more comfortable and less likely to scoot her buns along the floor. Today we're starting the 1:2:1 ration of soup:slivers:chunks. Sadly for miss Piper, we are out of turkey, and she'll have to endure chicken for a little while. She's not far into breakfast yet. All I can say is that when fed by hand, she destroyed a little 1/4" cube of chicken thigh.
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Post by gfountain on Nov 1, 2014 13:25:55 GMT -5
Good for her! GO PIPER!!
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Post by Deleted on Nov 5, 2014 12:22:10 GMT -5
So a few days into "pudding", we've been playing around with her portion sizes a little as she dictates them to us. I've been making itty bitty soup cubes, which are probably 1/4 to 1/3 the original size of the cubes. I've been mixing this in with about an ounce of cut up chicken that looks like this. This breakfast portion only came up to 1.2 or 1.3oz, but we found when giving her more, she couldn't get through it all before it went bad. Although we've been having great success with other portions like this, where the whole bowl has been getting licked clean.
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Post by gfountain on Nov 5, 2014 13:48:42 GMT -5
Work computer network w/ heavy censoring (bc of school kids) won't let me see your image, so I'll have to check it later. Sounds good though.
1.2 oz per meal, although it may seem like very little, is actually enough for her. Little girls generally only eat 2-3 oz per day. Their intake does vary quite a bit, it seems, depending on weather, mood, attitude, lol. Different proteins, different textures, it all makes a difference as to how much they eat. That is just something you'll learn about her as you go.
So since I can't see your image, I'm going to assume that it's of small chunks rather than slivers. Keep increasing the size of the chunks. Is she chewing with her back teeth when she eats? And does she seem comfortable with chewing the meat? I'm thinking we can start bone in the next couple of days, so make sure you have some bone-in meat on hand, either chicken wings or CGH. We want to use a protein that she's already familiar with so as not to change too many things at one time.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 6, 2014 13:15:56 GMT -5
Whenever I hear you talk about little girls, I think about what people say about me. I'm 5'2", but I eat like a horse! We're kindred spirits. But yes, her dish is a little teeny bit of soup, but most (1oz out of 1.2oz) of her meal is small chunks. We'll pay more attention to where she's chewing from, as she's been decimating the tiny cubes. While we're on the topic of bone-in... we try to brush her teeth really often in the before-bone stage, but her breath is really terrible. Now, "often" for us means bi-weekly. We'd do it more often, but it seems pretty traumatic for her. Is there any way to make it easier? We use a kitty toothpaste that supposedly tastes like chicken. Sly used to love it and would actually eat it given the chance, but then again, Sly was never on raw. Piper seems indifferent to the toothpaste, but as soon as the toothbrush comes out, she's wriggling like a torture victim. I swear, we're not that bad! She usually gets a small treat afterwards.
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Post by gfountain on Nov 6, 2014 17:19:26 GMT -5
Finally can see the chunks.. they look like about 1/4 inch cubes. Start making them longer, so 1/4" by about an inch. If she eats those with no problem, and I think she will, we'll start bone this weekend.
Toothbrushing.. she doesn't mind the toothpaste? Try using a piece of gauze wrapped around your finger instead of the brush. If she doesn't like the toothpaste, you can use a little oil and eggshell powder.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 7, 2014 10:15:09 GMT -5
Brilliant, ok. We'll try that. In the mean time, I wanted to give you a look at the chunk I tried with her this morning. I hadn't seen your 1/4" by 1" suggestion yet, so I tested hand-feeding her this. It's ok if you can't see this until you're out of work, it's no rush. On the left you'll see the little chunks she's been eating (about 1/4" square as you said), and on the right you'll see a big chunk, about 1/2" to about 3/4" long. This little girl is a dynamo! When I was hand-feeding her today I really saw her using her back teeth to break up big chunks and get through stringy pieces of fat. This evening I'll post a picture of her dinner to document her first mostly big chunk dinner.
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Post by gfountain on Nov 7, 2014 22:30:31 GMT -5
Oh, yeah, she's ready to move on. Try giving her a wing tip (smallest section) and see what she does with it. If we're lucky, she'll just chow down.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 9, 2014 11:36:19 GMT -5
Ok, so mixed news. Despite having had chicken wings in my possession these past few days, none of them turned out to be tips. So I've been giving her the smallest wings I find.
At first, I don't think she knew that the whole midsection of the wing was edible. I cut it into three main pieces, and then when she smelled and licked the flesh, she realized that she could eat it. However, she did more hiding of the separate pieces that trying to eat them. I'm trying this again today, while I know she's hungry but before I'm really worried.
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Post by gfountain on Nov 9, 2014 12:13:09 GMT -5
A lot of packaging companies are now packaging 'wingettes', which are wings without the tips. That's all I can find locally now too.. so frustrating.
So since she's not sure about eating the whole thing, let's cut the bone to expose the marrow. You're just going to give her what would be the middle section of the wing if the tip were there. It has 2 long skinny bones in it. Cut the bones LENGTHWISE, not across the bone. (It's easier with kitchen shears than with a knife.) That will expose a strip of marrow that should get her started on the bone itself. If not, you can smash bones for a while.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 10, 2014 21:42:29 GMT -5
She's been strange about eating in the last day or so. Normally- as you know- she's a chow-hound. But in the last 24-48 hours, she's been suspicious of us and the meat we present her with. By that I mean, Travis was worried about her, so he cut 2oz of turkey for her for lunch. She hadn't really eaten yesterday or last night. Strangely, she even snubbed turkey! This evening we both sat with her, trying to calmly hand-feed her in her room with the doors closed.
Smashing the bones gave us some success. If the marrow was stuck to other delightful morsels of fat or muscle, she would accept it, and we could hear her crunching away. But it surprised us how unwilling she was to try marrow. I suppose it makes sense now that I think back on it, given that marrow is yet another totally foreign food to her. Anyway, she was so unwilling, we tried a little gentle scruff-n-stuffing, although she often would just spit it back out.
We're hopeful though. Tonight, she took hold of a gnarled mess of thin bone fragments, marrow, and fat, and happily crunched away.
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Post by gfountain on Nov 10, 2014 23:29:01 GMT -5
They do have 'off' days, so unless she continues to not eat, don't worry about her. And she crunched through some bony stuff tonight, so good for her! Once she's eating those bone fragments on her own, you'll start increasing the size of the bone. Like with moving onto chunks, just take baby steps. It's just about time to start introducing a new protein also. If you can find something with small bones (CGH, quail, frog legs) that will give her both a new protein and more bone-crunching practice to help build up her jaw muscles.
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