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Post by bitbyter on Dec 28, 2014 0:28:26 GMT -5
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Post by Deleted on Jan 4, 2015 7:28:39 GMT -5
So my ferret will eat meat cut up or ground up. If I add tiny amounts of bone, she picks them out and won't eat. We started with soup in the beginning, about 3-4 weeks ago? Give me your best suggestions on how to better introduce bone, especially bone in meats. Thanks!
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Post by Deleted on Jan 4, 2015 10:09:39 GMT -5
My senior took to bone pretty good. i believe i started on the smaller birds--- cornish and quail. U may want to start with cornish hen wings,which can be divided into three sections--drum,middle and wing tip and offer that. Also Perdue Cornish Hens have the neck inside the bird cavity in a bag with some giblets. u could pound the devil out of that neck until it looks like grind.
U can also chop Cornish thighs into to halves and take off the excess meat on the sides of thigh (use as muscle meat later) I cut off knuckles too.
Don't feed ferrets the knuckles that have been cut off--mine was rolling one around in her mouth. They r slippery. if it had went down her throat she could have choked.
Legs on Cornish can be cut in half too--cut off knuckles, so they can get right to the bone.
hope things work out soon
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Post by Sherry on Jan 4, 2015 10:10:21 GMT -5
How large are the meat chunks? Does she have to chew them?
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Post by Deleted on Jan 4, 2015 12:26:31 GMT -5
Sophie is actually moving along nicely. You only started with soup around the middle of December.
Smash the bone until it is basically a fine powder. Then try offering her some. She will get use to the sandy texture, and then hopefully will begin trying bigger pieces.
I have one who spit all the bone pieces out also. I'd find all these little pieces all over their feeding mat. It took me awhile to figure out that it was Roamy and he eats bone well. He just avoided some pieces or had too much. I don't know.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 5, 2015 1:06:17 GMT -5
They are very very small pieces, maybe finger nail size. She spits it all out and leaves them. I've had them all sizes though. I'm not sure how to turn them into powder? I'm a newb lol
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Post by goingpostal on Jan 5, 2015 20:51:00 GMT -5
Don't backtrack, if she's eating cut up meat, feed meat that size until she's eating it well, you can coat it in some eggshell powder for a little calcium. Go to chunks, then add some soft bone like cgh ribs or quail.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 7, 2015 9:27:02 GMT -5
what did it for mine what hammering chicken necks until they were almost flat then cutting them into small bits. it took a while but we got there eventually
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Post by Deleted on Jan 9, 2015 1:58:53 GMT -5
Are the grinds from hare-today balanced for daily meals? Also, is is normal to find eggshell in my fert's poop? Is it being digested at all?
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Post by RedSky on Jan 9, 2015 6:13:35 GMT -5
I'm not in the US so don't know much about the grinds, do they have a list of ingredients and percentages? Does it say they are balanced for cats?
As for the egg shell, it needs to be really really well ground, the finer the better. I'm assuming that if you can see if in their stools that it is too big, simply because it can be seen so must be a fair size. They can't breakdown the eggshell, but if it is really finely ground they can absorb the calcium from it.
Try using a mortar and pestle and keep working with it until it is a powder.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 9, 2015 6:23:50 GMT -5
I'm not in the US so don't know much about the grinds, do they have a list of ingredients and percentages? Does it say they are balanced for cats? As for the egg shell, it needs to be really really well ground, the finer the better. I'm assuming that if you can see if in their stools that it is too big, simply because it can be seen so must be a fair size. They can't breakdown the eggshell, but if it is really finely ground they can absorb the calcium from it. Try using a mortar and pestle and keep working with it until it is a powder. It does say certain organs and heart. But no percentages and nothing about cats. Unless I'm totally blind and missed it. Ok I'll work on grinding egg shell better. I must have missed some in the last batch. Thank you!
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Post by RedSky on Jan 9, 2015 7:04:38 GMT -5
If it contains organs and heart then it sounds like a balanced diet. You can always add a bit more heart if you're worried, but should be fine.
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Post by Celene on Jan 9, 2015 10:01:58 GMT -5
From the Hare Today website:
What I personally do is feed a combination of both ground meat/bone/organs, some meaty bones and then also I feed some boneless meats and organs. Variety is the key to raw feeding. You are not aiming to feed a "complete and balanced" meal at every serving but to achieve the balance over time by feeding variety. You should aim for 80% meat, 10% edible bone and 10% organ meats. Out of the 10% organ meats 5% of this should be liver as liver is the largest organ in the body.
On our ground meats this will vary a bit as different meats have different bone contents but these are all whole animals so you will get the balance over time.
They basically grind (mostly) whole, entire animals. They don't guarantee balances because it changes depending on the animal. I would assume that Hare Today meat/bones/organs is basically a ground version of the whole prey diet.
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Post by racheld on Jan 9, 2015 10:53:31 GMT -5
The 'whole ground x' would be balanced because it's the whole animal. Some of them aren't though--I think Hare Today has a "chicken organ mix" that's mostly heart and gizzard.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 9, 2015 16:01:32 GMT -5
Here is a link to some info on commercial grinds. We had alot of questions about them and bitbyter wrote a great info thread: holisticferret60.proboards.com/thread/17099/commercial-grindsIf you can, pick up a small coffee grinder. They're about nine to twelve dollars. They grind eggshell into a fine powder. It's fast and easy to use. When I was doing my switch, I bought one just for that.
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