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Post by Heather on Jun 17, 2015 19:08:02 GMT -5
Does your ground turkey and ground beef have bone in? If it does you're too heavy on bone. If not, it's fine but if you find their stools are too dry you do have the opportunity to switch out one bone in meal with a muscle meat meal. Generally, we advocate about 7 or 9 bone in meals a week. I find for my crew, 7 is too low but that's just my guys. My girls require heavy bone in meals. In general...your menu looks good ciao
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Post by Deleted on Jun 17, 2015 19:20:40 GMT -5
Does your ground turkey and ground beef have bone in? If it does you're too heavy on bone. If not, it's fine but if you find their stools are too dry you do have the opportunity to switch out one bone in meal with a muscle meat meal. Generally, we advocate about 7 or 9 bone in meals a week. I find for my crew, 7 is too low but that's just my guys. My girls require heavy bone in meals. In general...your menu looks good ciao No ma'am they don't, just ground up meat only. My ground beef is about 70/30 on the fat content and the ground turkey I already have is lean. I am not able to find rabbit rib, so I may substitute another bone in meat. I did however purchase my scale and grinder today!
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Post by RedSky on Jun 18, 2015 2:18:28 GMT -5
Can you find any rabbit? I buy rabbit from our local butchers, the head, feet, skin and internals have been removed. Sometimes there might be a bit of lung or something left. They always offer to chop it up for me but since I want it in such small meals I'd rather take it home and do it myself. Plus my guys like Heather said are a bit lazy so all bones but the legs get a couple of hits with the cleaver to encourage them to eat them. I used to have to do that so much that you couldn't tell there was any bone so we're heading the right direction, 6 months on! Takes a while for them to learn to like bone. This is why my three need so many bone meals, often the only bits left are bone so they don't get enough.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 18, 2015 10:23:24 GMT -5
I can find rabbit head and ground up rabbit, but not any ribs.
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Post by FireAngel on Jun 18, 2015 15:19:44 GMT -5
Does the head still have the brains and eyes in it? If so, it's a great way to get some odder organs, just smash up the skull for them. It actually smashes relatively easily.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 20, 2015 13:00:58 GMT -5
Ok everyone, here's what I got at the store to start with. Some of the original meats I planned on getting they didn't have, so I made due with what they had. Bone in meat: Chicken wings Turkey necks Pork necks Organs: Chicken hearts(is it weird I find the size of them pretty cool?) Beef kidney Beef liver Muscle meats: Ground turkey 80/20 Ground beef 70/30 Chicken thigh meat Altogether, I have about 20 lbs of meat(2lbs each) spent about $35, and it's almost $9 a ferret if I divide the cost up that way. The meats are all natural, no added salt, extra additives, or hormones. I know a few of you said my bone in meats were dense, but I can smash them up if needed. I'm not sure how fast my group will take to eating bone, but we'll see! As soon as we're home and back to our normal routine, the switch begins!! Heather RedSky FireAngel
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Post by FireAngel on Jun 20, 2015 13:47:15 GMT -5
Wow, I've never seen pork necks but I would imagine smashing those up would be a necessity for sure! Beef has a strong flavor and some ferrets don't really take well to it, just as a warning. Looks good though!
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Post by Deleted on Jun 20, 2015 14:30:43 GMT -5
Most definitely! I've heard that, if they do happen to hate the beef, I can run to the store and substitute in another protein or do a half and half on the organs until the beef is gone. I've also got deer meat in our fridge, no one is eating it.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 20, 2015 17:35:36 GMT -5
Most definitely! I've heard that, if they do happen to hate the beef, I can run to the store and substitute in another protein or do a half and half on the organs until the beef is gone. I've also got deer meat in our fridge, no one is eating it. You can work on helping them to like beef several ways. One is what you mentioned. Add some beef to what they like and increase the ratio, a little each time. 80 percent something they like mixed with 20 percent beef, then maybe 60/40 until you are at 100percent beef. The other way is to find a cut that they like. I find that mine now like a nice fatty cut of chuck roast. Then they like it long and slivered as opposed to chunks, which they are okay with on other proteins. The third way is to find a fatty ground beef. Then whip up an egg with some warm water. Put the ground beef on the plate and pour the egg mixture over it. This was the first way that mine learned to eat beef. One more way is to offer only beef for a few days in a row. If I suggest this, then I usually will recommend doing this for their big meal of the day, like breakfast. We don't want them to not eat, and they are perfectly capable of refusing to eat. Sitting with them, anytime that you offer a new protein will go along way towards success. They need that coaxing in the beginning. Think of it as a lovely bonding time and not a "frustrating time trying to coax a picky toddler to eat time". So, they don't like the deer meat? How many times have you offered it and how?
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Post by Deleted on Jun 21, 2015 11:43:27 GMT -5
@poncesmom I'll definitely use those suggestions when I start them on the raw. I generally sit with them when they get their duck soup in the morning and at night. Oh, and I meant everyone in my house isn't eating the deer meat not the fuzzies, but that's probably because I'm the only one who can cook.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 21, 2015 11:49:36 GMT -5
Such cute pictures!
That's funny about the Deer. I only think Ferret when discussing food now. Ask my husband who grumbles when we order pizza and they get Cornish Game hen. (shy)
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Post by Deleted on Jun 21, 2015 22:16:41 GMT -5
Thank you! @poncesmom Haha, that's to be expected on here, it's mostly raw food talk! That's probably going to be my boyfriend in the future once the fuzzies are switched over. So, I've got the meats down, the meal plan, but I'm not sure how many ounces of each thing they get, on organ days, etc. I will be signing up for a mentor once I'm back home(which will be tomorrow).
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Post by FireAngel on Jun 21, 2015 23:13:06 GMT -5
Are you going to start with soup? If so then it will be a complete meal anyway and as you transition to the rest you will learn just how much a day they are eating and then can figure out how much organs on organs days!
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Post by Deleted on Jun 22, 2015 0:11:30 GMT -5
Yes, I have to. My oldest is the pickiest and I tried the other day to get two of my girls to eat a bit of raw meat and they barely ate one small piece even with kibble powder.
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Post by FireAngel on Jun 22, 2015 9:19:32 GMT -5
They do tend to eat more of the soup then the solid stuff but it does give you a good starting point for how much they are eating a day and then you or we can do the math for organs.
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