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Post by Celene on Mar 31, 2015 9:35:19 GMT -5
You think your life is poop? I made a collage of all the different crazy poops I had in a single week. (They did have some sort of bug though.) I'm only going to link the image in case you're curious, so you don't have to see it every time you scroll through your thread My girls seriously had all sorts of crazy poops when switching though. Especially if you're going back and forth between raw and kibble (even waiting in between) it can be stressful on their systems. Once you've been only 100% raw for a week or so, if one of their poops are still consistently different/waterier than the others' it may be a sign that ferret requires more calcium (eggshell/bonemeal) or has a sensitivity to chicken.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 31, 2015 10:26:27 GMT -5
Thanks Celene. I'm at work so no poop pictures for me haha! We've been 100% raw for a week except for the bit of kibble I gave Noodles last night when I got freaked out. I'll give it a couple more days. I'll be sad if they are sensitive to chicken since those are the easiest organs to get.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 31, 2015 10:28:02 GMT -5
I had a dream last night that I had a little mouse and let it go - Raisin CHARGED after it, killed it immediately, started eating it, and the Porkchop joined in. I don't really feel good about live feeding personally, but even still, I felt a twinge of excitement/pride. ...of course, then I woke up.
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Post by Desiree on Mar 31, 2015 11:07:43 GMT -5
Could you get dangly and top down pictures for us? With small animals I feel that weight gain and loss is a hard thing to get a handle on. Weighing them is wonderful but seeing body type and the way they look is also a great tool. This way if you ever feel that a ferret is losing to much we can see some pictures to help you determine whether or not they are losing too much.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 31, 2015 11:34:29 GMT -5
I'll take some pics tonight!
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Post by Celene on Mar 31, 2015 15:17:02 GMT -5
A good rule of thumb for weight is: - Hold them in the "dangle" position. They should be straight up and down, like a nice "sausage" shape. If they have a defined waist line, they are too skinny. If they bulge out at the sides, they are overweight (or may have an enlarged spleen or other health issue).
- Check out the ribs. You should be able to feel them. If you can see them, your ferret is too skinny. If you feel a layer of fat over them, well, your ferret may be fat.
Most people think pudgier ferrets are cute, or find it more reassuring as a ferrent. I found that on kibble my girls felt "squishier". Now that they're on raw they seem smaller, but also feel more muscular and strong. Either way they seem to be happy and have much more energy, so I've given up worrying!
Chicken is the most common allergen in ferrets. On kibble you don't notice because the chicken is so processed and sanitized that all allergens are basically destroyed! One of my girls (Nova, I think) seems to get diarrhea whenever I feed chicken. Their organ meals are still chicken hearts and livers (with a 3rd organ, so far either lamb kidney or veal pancreas) but I generally try to restrict their chicken intake other than that. There are different levels of allergies which range all the way up to full-on allergic reactions.
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Post by Celene on Mar 31, 2015 15:22:17 GMT -5
For reference (this is obviously the extremes, but shows you where to look for a waist/bulge) Skinny ferret Don't worry, he was rescued, nursed back to health, and now has a loving home! Fat ferret
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Post by Deleted on Mar 31, 2015 20:48:03 GMT -5
Tonight I am making pork with chicken liver, chicken hearts and bone meal. They've never had pork!
My boyfriend's ferrets are out right now, but in an hour or so mine will come out to play and I can try to get those pics..!
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Post by Deleted on Mar 31, 2015 23:06:32 GMT -5
Okay, I did my best to take what pictures I could: imgur.com/a/jW7psStarts out with 2 pics of Noodles in January plus a few pics I took tonight, then everyone else. Not the best quality but hopefully these help. I am really sad and worried about his weight loss. :\ Tried finger feeding him and Porkchop and they FLIPPED. OUT. ugh!
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Post by Celene on Apr 1, 2015 9:57:08 GMT -5
Hmm. Noodles does look a little thin. My girls refuse to be finger-fed too, but I will usually either try to spoon feed them, or sit them and the food in my lap and let them eat out of the bowl in my lap. They usually eat more that way. I'm tagging katt since she may be more of an expert in this area.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 1, 2015 11:43:54 GMT -5
I'm scared for him.
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Post by Celene on Apr 1, 2015 12:06:22 GMT -5
No, don't be scared! He's thin, but definitely not in any sort of unhealthy/danger level yet. A normal/healthy weight for a (neutered) male ferret is between 2-4 pounds so he's right in the middle of that range still. It is also COMPLETELY normal for ferrets to lose up to 40% of their weight in springtime (if you don't believe me you can look it up!) I was scared my girls were losing a lot of weight until I looked at my recorded weights for pre-winter and realized I was just used to them being so chubby for the last few months. As long as he's still at his normal activity level and seems otherwise healthy there is nothing to worry about. If you want him to eat more just bring him up on your lap and/or spoon feed him every hour or so. Let me know how the pork soup goes. Pork is naturally much fattier than chicken and ferrets tend to love it, so that should help
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Post by Deleted on Apr 1, 2015 12:12:30 GMT -5
Okay.. I'll try to keep reminding myself. He was a runt when we got him and very very sick. Just the littlest thing. He had to be hospitalized etc. I was so afraid he was going to die. And of course Petco got on my case for not feeding him Marshall's, as if that would have somehow made him not DEATHLY ILL. He grew up from a sickly runt into our biggest, healthiest, happiest weasel and it made me really happy. Watching him deteriorate, even though it's just weight, is a nightmare for me. His energy levels are OK though so that's good. I'm weirded out by the fact that Raisin looks bigger than him! I cannot for the life of me get a handle on spoon/finger feeding. I only manage to stress them out no matter how i do it. Pork was not acceptable to them. They barely touched it. I put a bit of ferretone on top to entice them to try it, but they just carefully licked the oil off the top. :\ Beef and Lamb are the favorites in our house..
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Post by Celene on Apr 1, 2015 14:11:42 GMT -5
Like most new proteins, they just need to be coerced and get used to it. I'll see if I can make you a video of spoon/dish feeding later today I know how you feel about the size thing Nova was always much smaller than Mocha so we always called her "little n".. But now she actually weighs slightly more than Mocha but we still end up calling her "little n" since we're so used to it. Many people like chubby ferrets and feel more comfortable when they're on the overweight side, although it's not necessarily the best for them (I personally think slightly larger is better than underweight though). I know bitbyter prefers to keep is ferrets lean, trim and in shape though. I still recommend trying to introduce egg yolk if you can. Once ferrets realize it isn't poison they go crazy for it and it's a great tool to get them trying new things.
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Post by bitbyter on Apr 1, 2015 14:52:17 GMT -5
lol, I don't know if I like them that way, it's just how they are. Wilma doesn't fluctuate much from winter to summer but Socks really porks out in winter and really slims down in summer. Every spring I freak out when Socks starts dropping because she is so tiny to begin with. Right now she's only 1 lbs 6 oz.
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