Tinker's Switching Journal

[Deleted]

October 20th, 2014 - First Post

Hey! I was signing up for a mentor but I started on my own and I got to the point where I don't think I need a mentor because I've already started but I'd like some support on here. So I'm setting up a self-switch thing.

Tinker is about 4ish months old and I got him in late August, early September. We're way past the soup stage and we're on a full raw diet at this point. No kibble, at all. This is his second week on a raw diet.

His meals are 2oz a meal, and we're trying to go up to 2.5oz because he's a growing boy and should eat more.

We're quasi-low on food right now and money, so he's got a bit less than usual but he'll be fine until next week when we can restock on all new tasty meats!

(I accidentally liked my post...awkward)

October 13th-19th (First Week Raw)
Mon AM: edible bone-in meat (turkey neck)
Mon PM: organ meal (1oz chicken liver/1oz pork kidney)

Tues AM: edible bone-in meat (chicken drumette)
Tues PM: heart (2oz pork heart)

Wed AM: edible bone-in meat (turkey neck)
Wed PM: muscle meat (2oz beef chunks)

Thur AM: edible bone-in meat (chicken drumette)
Thur PM: organ meal (1oz chicken liver/1oz pork kidney)

Fri AM: edible bone-in meat (turkey neck)
Fri PM: heart (2oz pork heart)

Sat AM: edible bone-in meat (chicken drumette)
Sat PM: muscle meat (2oz pork chunks)

Sun AM: edible bone-in meat (turkey neck)
Sun PM: edible bone-in meat (chicken drumette)
(^egg day^)

October 20th-26th (Second Week Raw)
Mon AM: edible bone-in meat (turkey neck)
Mon PM: organ meal (1oz chicken liver/1oz pork kidney)

Tues AM: edible bone-in meat (chicken drumette)
Tues PM: heart (2oz pork heart)

Wed AM: edible bone-in meat (turkey neck)
Wed PM: muscle meat (2oz beef chunks)

Thur AM: edible bone-in meat (chicken drumette)
Thur PM: organ meal (1oz chicken liver/1oz pork kidney)

Fri AM: edible bone-in meat (turkey neck)
Fri PM: pretend heart (2oz pork chunks with taurine powder) (we're out of heart)

Sat AM: edible bone-in meat (chicken drumette)
Sat PM: muscle meat (2oz pork chunks)

Sun AM: edible bone-in meat (turkey neck)
Sun PM: edible bone-in meat (chicken drumette)
(^egg day^)

Activity Log
He's been all cool activity wise. Short attention span as always. He got a dig-box last week and enjoyed it for about 10 minutes and will play with it a once every few days. October 19th he got a big box palace and got bored of it fast.

[Deleted]

It sounds like you've moved along nicely. That's great.

I've Liked my own posts before too. Just reclick it.

Necks are difficult for them, you really want a smaller bone or smash it up alot.

A few tweaks: Bones are the Non Weight Bearing bones. A drummette is a weight bearing bone. Use wings instead. Quail, cornish game hen, rabbit, duck or turkey wings will work.

Your second Organ meal should include a half meal of Hearts. So, Liver plus another Organ plus a half meal of heart.

The average boy will eat 3-4 oz a day, so if you can get him to eat more, that's good for him. Are you sitting with him? It might take some coaxing to get "just one more bite" into him.

:thumbsup: Nice Ferrenting, you should be proud.

[Deleted]

I beat the crud out of the necks with a hammer . Yeah I can get a couple more bites sometimes, I would love for him to eat more. Also, he actually seems to be able to break up the drumette? I accidentally got drumettes because I asked for the "drumettes and wings and stuff" because Earth Fare has the drumettes thrown together with the wing tips, and I guess she just heard 'drummettes'. :b

So even though he has 2 2oz meals of hearts a week he needs one of his organ meals to be 1oz liver and kidney and 1oz of heart?

Thanks for the compliment! It means a lot!

[Deleted]

What he needs to is for the Organs (liver plus another organ) to equal ten percent of his weekly intake.

Hearts should equal another ten percent of his weekly intake.

Does that make sense?

[Deleted]

I think so? So he needs 2.8oz of heart and 2.8oz of organ? It says that at least 1.5 meals need to be heart, so a bit more isn't bad is it? Cause he has two heart meals a week. I'm saying 2oz for now, but next week I'm going to up it to 3 oz a meal. Also 2 is easier math to do for this example...But don't worry he'll be eating more.

So it would be:

-One 2oz meal: heart
-One 2oz meal: 1oz liver/1oz kidney
-One 2oz meal: 1oz heart & 0.5oz liver/0.5oz kidney

?

[Deleted]

October 27th, 2014 - Second Post

October 27th-November 2nd (3rd Week Raw)
Mon AM: edible bone-in meat (chicken drumette)
Mon PM: edible bone-in meat (chicken drumette)

Tues AM: edible bone-in meat (chicken drumette)
Tues PM: heart (3oz pork heart)

Wed AM: edible bone-in meat (chicken drumette)
Wed PM: organ meal (1.5oz chicken liver/1.5oz pork kidney)

Thur AM: edible bone-in meat (chicken drumette)
Thur PM: muscle meat (3oz beef chunks)

Fri AM: edible bone-in meat (chicken drumette)
Fri PM: mixed meal (0.75oz chicken liver/0.75oz pork kidney and 1.5oz heart)

Sat AM: edible bone-in meat (chicken drumette)
Sat PM: muscle meat (3oz goat chunks)

Sun AM: edible bone-in meat (chicken drumette)
Sun PM: muscle meat (3oz pork chunks)
(^egg day^)


Activity Log
He didn't eat all his breakfast this morning, but ate it when I gave it to him later. He is really active and happy and came to love his rice box. Took him on a walk for a few hours to "tailgate" to have him held and petted when he felt like it. He had a nice warm nap in the cat carrier when he was tired and done.

[gfountain]

A drumette is usually the largest section of a wing.. whatever bone you give him will be fine IF he can eat it.

It is AT LEAST 1.5 meals of heart. More is OK since they can't overdose on heart. So if you're feeding 2 whole meals of heart, that half heart/half organ meal isn't necessary, but you do have to get that half organ meal in there somehow. Whether you feed it with heart or with something else is up to you.

[Deleted]

November 3rd, 2014 - Third Post

November 3rd-November 9th (4rd Week Raw)
Mon AM: edible bone-in meat (chicken wingette)
Mon PM: edible bone-in meat (chicken wingette)

Tues AM: edible bone-in meat (chicken wingette)
Tues PM: heart (2oz pork heart)

Wed AM: edible bone-in meat (chicken wingette)
Wed PM: organ meal (1oz chicken liver/1oz pork kidney)

Thur AM: edible bone-in meat (chicken wingette)
Thur PM: muscle meat (2oz beef chunks)

Fri AM: edible bone-in meat (chicken wingette)
Fri PM: mixed meal (0.5oz chicken liver/0.5oz pork kidney and 1oz heart)

Sat AM: edible bone-in meat (chicken wingette)
Sat PM: muscle meat (2oz goat chunks)

Sun AM: edible bone-in meat (chicken wingette)
Sun PM: muscle meat (2oz pork chunks)
(^egg day^)


Activity Log
Super great this past week (the activity logs are about the previous week) we were able to be home almost all week other than the party we went to Friday, so he got plenty of attention. He's really active and running around a good bit. Learning to love his leash and will now run while on his leash and dook.

Other
I'm trying to up his food intake to 2oz and a few bites by handfeeding the last bit. Each chicken wingette meal is 1 1/2 wingettes. This week it's wingettes, next week it's drumettes and turkey neck. I just can't afford any turkey neck right now because I have very very little money. I'll add a weigh in next week.

[Deleted]

November 10th, 2014 - Fourth Post

November 10th-November 19th (5th Week Raw)
Mon AM: edible bone-in meat (chicken wingette)
Mon PM: edible bone-in meat (chicken wingette)

Tues AM: edible bone-in meat (chicken wingette)
Tues PM: heart (2oz pork heart)

Wed AM: edible bone-in meat (turkey neck)
Wed PM: organ meal (1oz chicken liver/1oz pork kidney)

Thur AM: edible bone-in meat (chicken wingette)
Thur PM: muscle meat (2oz beef chunks)

Fri AM: edible bone-in meat (turkey neck)
Fri PM: mixed meal (0.5oz chicken liver/0.5oz pork kidney and 1oz heart)

Sat AM: edible bone-in meat (chicken wingette)
Sat PM: muscle meat (2oz goat chunks)

Sun AM: edible bone-in meat (turkey neck)
Sun PM: muscle meat (2oz pork chunks)
(^egg day^)


Activity Log
Great levels of activity, took him tailgating again like we do every home game. I'm insanely proud of how socialized he is, kids love him and he loves being touched in most every way. Still really active and dooky.

Weigh-In
2 lbs 12 oz
(On October 27th he was 2 lbs and 10 oz so he is growing?)

Other
He's eating less I think, about 1.5oz a meal and I'm kind of concerned. He's acting great though. He's starting to get bad about his eating though. We try and hand feed him his whole dinner now because his dinners are almost always things other that bone-in meat. He eats his bone-in just fine and with a lot of gusto. He's alright sometimes with the muscle meats that are not heart. But when it comes to heart and organ meats he doesn't really eat near enough to make me feel comfortable. We hand feed him a butt-load. Also today and yesterday he seems to be chocking on his food more and it's scaring the crap out of me. Like I'm seriously scared to death about this, I sit and watch him eat, prepared to ferret Heimlich him. He seems more interested in his food when we sometimes miss some stashes and he runs to get them. So he likes to eat his ferret jerky (we don't let him, because ew) more than his fresh meats. He also will only consider his fresh meat when it's wet for some reason. I don't know advice would be loved.

[Deleted]

Update
He's not eating much so this week we're going to try feeding him things in slabs more or less so he might eat it all instead of stashing the bits, and then later in the week I finely cut everything so small it would be a pain in the fuzzy-tush to stash. He seems more concerned with stashing than eating and that really worries me. Should I take him to the vet? He is still growing, active, and not acting weird at all besides the eating less and insisting on just stashing food. It's like he's suddenly getting really picky and weird. : ( Help?

I'm looking into an in-cage feeding den so he's limited on where it can go and so he can't stash under everything, any recommendations, I have a Ferret Nation model 182, any ideas on what plastic boxes could nestle in there or something? Or how I could secure it so he won't throw it around?

[Deleted]

Update
I'm going to make this journal just about Tinker and how he's doing rather than switching because he is 100% switched. We've started shredding the organs so he can't pick stuff out and that's going really well and we only feed in cage now which is GREAT. Still looking for the perfect plastic box feeding den to snuggle up in there for stashing.

He's about 6 months old and kinda done imprinting, so new food is gonna be a pain now. We've gotten him eating: Pork (Hearts, kidneys, muscle meat), Chicken (Bone in meat, liver), Quail (Bone in meat), Turkey (Necks), Beef (Muscle meat), Goat (Muscle meat), and Eggs.

I just acquired a HUGE slab of venison but he doesn't seem to care to much for it, I chopped some of it up and bagged it. It was hard for a vegetarian of 14-15 years who never really touched or messed with meat up until recently to handle because it was so disturbingly big . Overall I think we've done a decent job giving him multiple types of meat and I'm really proud. But that doesn't mean we're going to stop trying to expand his protein types, although I've given up on mice and rats he just hates them and always has. I know capitalizing the meats is wrong grammar but it puts emphasis on it so when I read this later it's easier to find. I hope to one day get him eating: Venison, Lamb, Cornish Game Hen, Duck, and Rabbit. Ideally since I live in Alabama I need to find some more hunting friends I trust and in an ideal world I could get him eating: Pheasant, Dove,

Recently he's found some rather annoying fixations. One of them is ripping up carpet. We're trying to train him to not do that but ferret dad is awful at it (he scruffs then cuddles him and plays with him) that's really behavior encouraging . He's also gotten into sprinting to the cat food bowl and trying to eat her kibble (he's gotten some once or twice and gets sick, dummy.) I hope to get sheer plastic baby gates for Christmas. He's still got a short attention span and is bored of toys fast and I hope I can get him another Waardie buddy, I've decided I only want ferrets with Waardenburg Syndrome because I'm really loud, and I'm really good at caring for them I think because Tinker is a Waardie. I plan on rescuing though. He did get a weird milky discharge out of his eye for about 3 days then it cleared up with close monitoring, fluids, and me wiping it off a bit, I think he just got a bit of an irritant in it. Overall he's doing great. I doubt anyone will read this essay but I'm avoiding studying for finals right now and I thought he deserved an update!

If the staff think that this would better go somewhere else because it's no longer just about switching feel free to change its location!

[Deleted]

Your Journal is fine here.

He seems more concerned with stashing than eating and that really worries me.

Some really prefer to stash and then let it get "jerkified" and eat it. Mine are free roam and stashing is part of free roam. Juliet rarely eats in front of me, and always has to stash. I think she feels more secure that way.

On October 27th he was 2 lbs and 10 oz so he is growing?)

That's a good healthy weight. He's about six and he may grow more, and probably will put on some more weight.

I just acquired a HUGE slab of venison


That's a strong flavor and he may take awhile to like it. Just like any new food, he has to be taught that it's food. That means that you want to sit with him and coax him with some hand feeding.

Recently he's found some rather annoying fixations. One of them is ripping up carpet.

You can't change a ferret's mind. Try putting some plastic over it or something heavy. If the carpet is at a door, he wants the door open. Slide a piece of plastic or plywood under it.

He's also gotten into sprinting to the cat food bowl and trying to eat her kibble (he's gotten some once or twice and gets sick, dummy.)


Kibble is like candy, you are going to have to put it up and away or find your poor hungry kitty some safe place for her food.

Overall I think we've done a decent job giving him multiple types of meat and I'm really proud.

You have done really well and should feel proud. Switching isn't easy.

I've decided I only want ferrets with Waardenburg Syndrome because I'm really loud, and I'm really good at caring for them I think because Tinker is a Waardie.


A friend for Tinker would be wonderful. They really have much more fun with a friend and it's so much easier for you. You don't have to worry about them being alone or bored, while you're away from home.
An only ferret can be happy, I've had an only ferret. But when I see my five play and I know what a strong bond that Roamy and Juliet have, I want that kind of joy for all our ferrets.

Speaking of Juliet, she is scratching to come downstairs. My upstairs and downstairs are currently separated while we intro our new deaf Miss Keller. So, I'll check back in a little later.

:wave2:

[Deleted]

Winter Break
Well Tinker and I are on winter break and out of college for now and back at my mom's house. This is only his second time here (last time was Thanksgiving break for a week). All of our animals get along really well, one of the dogs (I don't let them actually touch eachother to interact, just look) gets so excited about Tinker when she sees him. I don't think it's in a prey way either, she loves the cats and will lick them and try to follow them, and she just jumps up happily and wags her tail and whines like she does with the cats at Tinker.

Thank you for the carpet advice Pouncesmom! I'll try to get some plastic to put there because it is by a door. And yeah, we do put the kibble up now it was just interesting how into it he was. Also, I didn't know venison was a strong flavor, I guess that makes sense! I'm a vegetarian of 14 years and never had it.

When we drove up to my parents the Ferret Dad and I realized we had forgotten all his food! So we spent 5 hours driving around Birmingham calling places to acquire food that wouldn't be like a whole case of kidneys. We ended up driving to a really really sketchy part of town and got some kidneys, and found an Asian market that had some hearts. The quality of the meats doesn't seem as good as the meats I have access to back at home though, and sadly we can't order meats off of websites because one of our dogs is aggressive, and they both like meat and would tear that box up...and maybe the delivery guy... But we got the food, I also managed to get a rabbit which freaked my mom out...

We've got a good routine down (kinda different each day) each day where I wake up, go on an hour long walk with him, he gets to stay in the kitchen in his ferret playpen and eat breakfast for an hour, before he goes back to sleep. Then I wake him up later and we play in my mom's massive den for an hour (With the leash still on incase I need to grab him because it's not ferret proofed so I watch him intently). Go eat dinner in the play pen for an hour. Then play one more hour hands on with me in my bedroom before bedtime. When he's done eating I fill the playpen with about 8 towels, plastic tubes running through them, pingpong balls and boxes (he loves it, it's like a playground)
So he gets:
- 5 hours out overall
- 3 hours spent playing and interacting with me
- 1 hour spent being outside

I really wish I had enough toys and stuff to cycle them out, but he gets bored of stuff so fast I have to keep all of it out usually, although that's not saying much because we don't have much and he's impossible to entertain. Hopefully for my birthday in August I can get another ferret.

His gooky eye is back, in the same eye, it's no the detergent we use, the litter, or the cleaning fluid I use for his cage (vinegar and water) and it's still in the same eye. Monday I'm going to take him to his first vet appointment in Birmingham with the person who will be his second vet to take a look at it because it's been about two weeks off and on. Good news though, he is getting a second story to his cage for christmas! I think he's getting more than me...because all I asked for was stuff for him. He's also getting a Marshall stuffed alligator thing and a black cage cover because he tears the sheet we put on his off. I really can't wait for those baby gates...and a new ferret friend for my birthday because he's impossible to entertain...

So far I think I'm doing pretty well managing Tinker without FerretDad considering my personality. (I'm short tempered, easily annoyed, can only do things for a short period of time, have anxiety, and require a lot of mental breaks).