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Post by Deleted on Jan 27, 2015 1:13:23 GMT -5
Poor thing :/ and yes as small of chunks as you can get. We gotta get these girls chewing!
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Post by Celene on Jan 27, 2015 9:48:01 GMT -5
Neither would take it from me directly (although in general they seem to be more fond of poultry than red meat but I thought I'd try it anyway). When I mixed it in with their food they would chew it if they got a mouthful, but only when they licked it up.
I'll try again this morning with chicken.
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Post by Celene on Jan 27, 2015 10:39:14 GMT -5
So this morning I tried with chicken. Mocha woke up first, I offered her the tiniest piece ever of chicken from my hand and she came and sniffed it, then looked up at me, made eye contact, and just stared. The look said "you expect me to just eat this plain?" and eventually she walked off. I put the tiniest drop of salmon oil on it and she gobbled it right up. I can get them to eat chicken, the problem is they'll still only lick it up, so if I increase the size of pieces they just don't get eaten. Here is what I gave Mo this morning, mostly chicken pieces with a tiny bit of heart/liver. I already knew she wouldn't eat it like that, but tried just in case. Then I put egg on it. This is her eating it. You'll see she only licks it, but chews it if she happens to lick it up . Sorry the video is pretty low-res. I had to compress it a bunch since I didn't have hours to wait for the full size version to upload, but it conveys the point.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 27, 2015 18:46:26 GMT -5
Have you tried a little bit of tough love? Give them mostly chunks with maybe a very small amount of egg or grind? Try offering that for both meals and see if they give in. I think they're maybe being a little lazy and know it's easier to eat soft.foods than try chewing.
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Post by Celene on Jan 27, 2015 19:26:25 GMT -5
I've been thinking that too, but I'm so afraid of starving them!
I do remember having the best standoff with Mocha after I removed their kibble, the first time I didn't top the grind with a bunch of salmon oil. For creatures that make no sound and have limited facial expressions they are amazing at communicating exactly what they're thinking. She kept sniffing the grind, then pulled her head back and shook it, then turned to me and gave me a long stare. Then she'd sniff at the grind again and turn around and speed bump beside it. I was so proud of myself for just standing there are staring back. After about 35 minutes of that she finally (clearly reluctantly) started eating it but indicating by her body language that she thought it was poison.
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Post by Celene on Jan 27, 2015 22:40:22 GMT -5
So I gave them nothing but slivers and so far no bites. After being clearly fed up with me and annoyed that I wasn't listening they eventually went back to bed - didn't even run around or play! I think I might mix in just a tiny amount of the chicken grind since it's thawed anyway. I also cut a whole bunch of slivers and made up some 0.100 lb bags of "balanced slivers" to freeze. Out of the 0.100 lbs it's 80% chicken breast, 10% chicken liver and 10% chicken heart. How much eggshell powder do I need to add for calcium?
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Post by Deleted on Jan 28, 2015 0:27:36 GMT -5
Maybe 1/2 a tsp? Those are pretty small baggies. Theses girls are so stubborn! I wish I could send you one of mine to teach them how to raw.
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Post by Celene on Jan 28, 2015 9:55:28 GMT -5
They're the worst! (Actually they are the very best and incredibly well-behaved and almost never get into trouble, but they are the worst for stubbornness.) When first I got them and had to switch them off crap kibble it was so hard because even when I initially put 5% of the new stuff with 95% of the old Mocha straight up stopped eating. Nova treated the new kibble like gold so I had separate bowls, but it took forever to switch Mo and it killed me to see her eat the bad stuff in the meantime. Same thing when I switched from ferretone to salmon oil. You think they're both fishy and stinky enough that a 50/50 mix would fly? Nope. The good news is by the time dinner rolled around they were pretty hungry. I mixed the chicken with a teensy bit of their grind and a little egg yolk (leftover from before so figure I may as well use it) and I fed them separately so that each had to eat the slivers too and couldn't just lick the grind off and leave the rest. I cut the "slivers" a little thicker, but narrower and shorter than before. Basically imagine matches from a book, if instead of flat they were more square and had the tops removed.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 28, 2015 12:10:06 GMT -5
So they ate it?
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Post by Celene on Jan 28, 2015 13:57:46 GMT -5
Yup. Did the same thing this morning and they didn't eat so much. Well, Mocha ate (because she's a piggy and always starving) but Nova held out. My husband is home today (he just had all 4 wisdom teeth pulled on Monday) so he's going to try to get her to eat some more.
Otherwise she'll be really hungry for dinner and will definitely have to eat then!
Also I weighed them this morning. Don't have the chart on me since I'm at work but I believe it was 1.75 lbs for Mocha and 1.68 lbs for Nova.
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Post by Celene on Jan 28, 2015 23:24:17 GMT -5
So I think maybe Nova just has a bigger appetite in the evening, since she ate a whole 0.8 oz tonight! Is that normal/a thing for ferrets to eat a lot once a day than a smaller amount twice a day?
Also, should I be concerned that they're eating a lot of chicken? I know ferrets should have 3-4 proteins a week, but I also know that a lot of people feed only chicken soupies during transition. I'm going to try and sneak in some beef and pork slivers, but just want to know in case they eat around them.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 28, 2015 23:31:39 GMT -5
its okay for right now since theyre just switching to have them on 1-2 proteins. Once we get them regularly eating this we can move on to adding more meats.
Sometimes thhey just aren't hungry when you want to feed them. Evanna had specific times she would eat. Otherwise she turned her nose up at me.
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Post by Celene on Jan 28, 2015 23:50:53 GMT -5
The problem is Mocha will gobble up any food left out so if Nova doesn't eat before I leave for work she won't eat until I get home.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 29, 2015 2:11:03 GMT -5
Mocha will eat all of it? What about leaving a little more than what Mocha will eat so nova at least has a little bit.
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Post by Celene on Jan 29, 2015 10:20:40 GMT -5
No, I mean Mocha will eat all of it, no matter how much I give them. I know ferrets aren't supposed to be like dogs and eat more than they need, but since switching Mocha to raw she's really become quite the piggy! I've tolerated it since it was winter and because I was told that when ferrets first switch they eat tons to make up for lost nutrients, but now I'm worried she's just getting fat.
Also they've both still been having runny (despite the eggshell) and mucousy poops so I think I am going to stop the slivers for a few days while I feed red meat grinds and see if that changes things, just in case they have a food sensitivity or something I definitely don't want to be feeding them anything that makes it worse!
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