Building a menu isn't too hard. I, and others, can help you through it. Since you are getting kits and they are already on raw once you build a menu, you are set. The goal is to decide what you want to do. Do you want to do frankenprey with some whole prey? All whole prey? For me, whole prey is just to too expensive to do all the time so I do some whole prey with frankenprey.
Below are the two differences.
"Pre-killed whole prey is the next closest to ‘all natural’, and is probably the easiest way to feed a ferret. Each whole prey meal is completely balanced in and of itself, so there is no need to measure and weigh (and worry about) what they eat when feeding a whole prey diet. In addition, whole prey poops are awesome - they are complete little fur- or feather-covered packages that are easy to clean up.
And that brings us to frankenprey, a big word that simply means feeding a balanced diet with “grocery store meats”. It is possibly the most complicated method of feeding in the beginning, because it requires thought on the part of the owner, but once the initial learning curve is mastered, it is no more difficult than any other type of raw feeding. With all of these options, it’s easy to choose a method, or a combination of methods, of feeding that works for you. And once you understand the basics of ferret nutrition and establish a routine, you’ll discover that it is very simple to feed your ferret a balanced, healthy raw diet."
As I said a menu isn't too hard. If you are feeding three meals of whole prey a week out of 14 meals (2 meals a day) you just subtract that number from your total meals. So that give us 11 meals that needs to be balance. Whole prey is already balanced so that's why we don't include those. Remember a meal is everything eaten in 12 hours.
Now, here comes the math, let's say your two little one are eating 5 ozs together per meal. That is 55 ozs per week they are consuming together. 10% of their balance should be heart, so that is 5.5 ozs of heart, and 5% needs to be liver and 5% needs to be another organ, either kidney or brain or pancreas, something that secrets hormones. So that make 2.75 ozs of liver and 2.75 ozs of other organ. Now 50-60% is bone in, my guys do better with more bone in, so I do 60%, the two numbers make it between 27.5-33 ozs of bone in and then 20-30% needs to be muscle meat 11-16.5 ozs needs to be muscle meats. I know this seems like a whole lot of math but I promise it gets easier when we start placing it in the menu format.
Sun AM: organ meal (½ liver, ½ other organ)
Sun PM: edible bone-in meat
Mon AM: edible bone-in meat (or muscle)
Mon PM: edible bone-in meat
Tues AM: heart
Tues PM: edible bone-in meat
Wed AM: muscle meat
Wed PM: edible bone-in meat
Thur AM: heart and organ (½ liver, ½ other organ)
Thur PM: edible bone-in meat
Fri AM: edible bone-in meat (or muscle)
Fri PM: edible bone-in meat
Sat AM: muscle meat
Sat PM: edible bone-in meat
Here is the standard frankenpey menu. Below is what I just added in so you can see how it works with whole prey. We are going with 5 ozs per meal (just a random number, your ferrets might eat less or more)
Sun Am - Liver and Kindey (Organs, 5.5ozs)
Sun Pm - Chicken Wing (bone in, 5 ozs)
Mon am - Mice (Whole prey, 5 ozs)
Mon pm - Quail (Bone in, 5ozs)
Tue am - Pork (muscle meat, 5 ozs)
Tue pm - CGH (bone in, 5 ozs)
Wed am - Rat (whole prey, 5 ozs)
wed pm - Duck (bone in, 5 ozs)
Thu am - Heart (taurine source, 5.5 ozs)
thu pm - CGH (Bone in, 5 ozs)
Fri am - Beef (muscle meat, 5 ozs)
fri pm - Smelt (whole prey fish, 5 ozs)
sat am - Duck Gizzard (muscle meat 5 ozs)
sat pm - Quail (Bone in, 5 ozs)
As you can see for the most part, the numbers are even, this just makes it easier to weigh and portion out for easy feeding. Here are those percentages numbers again and how they compare.
5 ozs meals, 11 meals without whole prey in a week.
Heart at 10% is 5.5 ozs which we have.
Liver and organs at 5.5 ozs (1/2 and 1/2 which we have)
Bone in at 50-60% was 27.5-33 ozs and we have 30 ozs
Muscle meat at 20-30% was 11-16.5 ozs and we have 15ozs.
Sorry, that was a lot to take in but this will help you when you start building your menu. You may have totally different proteins for everything, kidney isn't always well liked so you may use something else. I included gizzards because they are great for cleaning teeth and great for building jar strength. And of course, they will change how much they eat, depending on seasons, as they grow, (kits eat a lot!!) and general mood. It is an ever changing process but once you have the foundation down for building a menu you will be all set. (And if you feed all whole prey, just toss it in and forget about it
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