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Post by Deleted on Aug 14, 2015 15:32:43 GMT -5
Silly Moe, trying to choose the easy way. I guess ya can't blame him though, even us hoomans try the, "Well, if I can.." hahaha. Let us know when you get any new proteins/when you get more heart for a full meal, and how they take to it.
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Post by katt on Aug 19, 2015 19:17:23 GMT -5
Keep working on gradually increasing the chunk size. Try a little finger feeding too - often that helps encourage them to try a new size of meat.
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Post by brightstar on Aug 20, 2015 14:22:44 GMT -5
Thanks for the encouragement. They're doing well eating thumb-sized pieces now. The pork and beef arrived yesterday. I also have enough hearts and liver to start them on a heart/liver only meal. My husband has been sick recently, and may have to have surgery, so I won't be able to start on introduing the new proteins just yet. But in the meantime I hope to continue working with what they're currently used to. Since they're eating 18oz daily (9oz per meal), I was going to feed them 6oz heart, 3oz liver for tomorrow's morning meal. Do I still continue to feed them smaller quantity of heart and liver at all other times?
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Post by FireAngel on Aug 20, 2015 17:44:14 GMT -5
Thanks for the encouragement. They're doing well eating thumb-sized pieces now. Great! Keep slowly increasing the size!The pork and beef arrived yesterday. I also have enough hearts and liver to start them on a heart/liver only meal. Did you get any other type of organ? Heart should be 10% liver should be 5% and the other 5% should be another secreting organ such as kidney or pancreas.My husband has been sick recently, and may have to have surgery, so I won't be able to start on introduing the new proteins just yet. But in the meantime I hope to continue working with what they're currently used to. I'm sorry to hear that hope he heals quickly!Since they're eating 18oz daily (9oz per meal), I was going to feed them 6oz heart, 3oz liver for tomorrow's morning meal. Do I still continue to feed them smaller quantity of heart and liver at all other times? Heart should be 6oz, liver 1.5oz and the other 1.5oz should be another organ. You do not want to continue to feed so much liver as the vitamin a could build up and become toxic for them.
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Post by brightstar on Aug 21, 2015 18:22:32 GMT -5
I brought them some chicken gizzards. Will they work?
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Post by katt on Aug 21, 2015 18:26:44 GMT -5
No, gizzards are a muscle meat - not organ. GREAT for chewing on to strengthen jaws and clean teeth though. If you REALLY can't find other organs, their diet can be 10% liver. However, you should look really hard and try all possibilities for getting other organs first. Other organs include things like kidneys, brain, uterus, pancreas, spleen, testicles, etc.
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Post by brightstar on Aug 23, 2015 16:29:59 GMT -5
Do they have to be chicken organs? I found more organs from hare-today, but they're not chicken. I can only find the chicken hearts and liver from hare-today.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 23, 2015 17:21:40 GMT -5
Nope, they can be from any animal I've given mine pork, beef and chicken based organs, any type you can find is just fine.
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Post by FireAngel on Aug 23, 2015 21:27:09 GMT -5
Any animal type of organ is fine as long as it is not like bear liver or soemthing. You should not feed the liver of a carnivore to another carnivore ever and if you ever choose to feed a muscle meat of a carnivore keep it very limited.
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Post by brightstar on Sept 8, 2015 14:54:19 GMT -5
Sorry it's been a while. My husband had surgery last week and I've been quite busy taking care of him before and after. I haven't been able to make as fast progress with switching my five to raw as I'd have liked, but I have been making progress. I've fed them a couple of heart and liver only meals, and they've eaten them. The rest of the time I'm feeding them chicken thigh - they're eating large pieces now - about 2 - 3 inches in length. I haven't been able to get them any other organs aside from heart and liver. I'll need to make another order from hare-today soon, so will get them some different organs to try from there. Yesterday I tried them with pinkie rats, but it didn't go well. Morning feed I chopped the pinkies in half (and added some whole ones as well) and mixed them with their usual chicken dinner. They left all the pinkies. Evening I tried chopping the pinkies even smaller and mixing them with FDR (3oz pinkie, 5oz FDR). They barely ate any of their dinner. Did I maybe expect too much of them? Should I have focused on getting them to eat the pork and beef? I've not had chance to start them on any new proteins - I tried the pinkies out of a curiosity (and because I accidentally got them out of the freezer with the chicken, so I wanted to use them.)
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Post by brightstar on Sept 12, 2015 16:02:50 GMT -5
Update:
I found a bag of chicken pieces (with bone) in the freezer from my last order from hare-today, which I'd forgotten about. I defrosted them, and portioned them out with the chicken thigh/heart/liver mix. I broke the bones up into different sizes. So far, they've had 3 meals and are taking to it really well.
I've just ordered them some more chicken pieces from hare-today, plus chicks and a whole chicken. Plus beef lung and kidney. I think Hare-today have updated their website - I don't like it so much at the moment;l there wasn't as much information on the products.
I assume my next task is to increases the sizes of the chicken pieces with bone. My five are already eating fairly large pieces and chunks, but there's room for them to be a bit larger.
With regards to the organ meal, they eat chicken heart and liver meal now - although I don't think they're too fond of liver. How often should I feed them the organ meal? Do I still add the 2oz heart and 1oz liver to their meals at all other times?
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Post by FireAngel on Sept 12, 2015 17:14:14 GMT -5
1.5 meals a week should be just hearts and 1.5 meals would be organ. Typically people feed 1 heart meal, 1 organ meal and then 1 meal that is half heart and half organ. They would notget heart ororgans any other time using the typical/basic frankenprey menu plan.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 7, 2015 10:33:17 GMT -5
brightstar how are you fuzzies doing in their switch so far? Any news/changes at all? Hope everything is going well
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Post by brightstar on Oct 18, 2015 21:38:23 GMT -5
brightstar how are you fuzzies doing in their switch so far? Any news/changes at all? Hope everything is going well @julesalot Thanks for checking in with me --- sorry I didn't get chance to reply sooner. My five are all now eating chicken with bones. I've got them eating some pretty large size pieces. They also like chicken heart, but really don't seem to want to touch the liver and other organs. They do kinda pick at them, but don't seem to enjoy them as much as the hearts and chicken meat. I was hoping to feed them their first whole chick today, but I didn't have much success - so I'm back here hoping for advise. I tried slicing the chicks open to expose the insides. Bear took a nibble at a foot, Penny, Mel and Bianca just sniffed, and Moe took a lick and then made a disgusted gagging sound! When I checked a few hours later, the bowl was untouched and none of the chicks had been eaten. Bear's nibble of the chicks foot pretty much went no further than that. My understanding from what I read of other people's transitions is that this stage should be fairly simple - but mine just don't seem to get it. Is it because chick meat tastes different to adult chicken? The other week, I ran out of food from Hare-Today, so I gave them a bowl of chicken breast that I brought from the grocery store. I know they've had chicken breast before from hare-today, and really enjoy it. But not one of them touched the bowl full of breast from the grocery store. Are ferrets really so picky about difference due to brand, or are mine just super fussy? Any suggestions for how I can transition them from frankenpray to whole pray. I know it's not good to feed them chicks every day, but I wanted to start with the chicks since they're used to chicken. I tried them with pinkies and small adult mice, but they weren't interested with them at all. I could buy ground mouse from hare-today, but with them being so difficult to get to eat whole chicks, I'm not sure how I'd transition from ground mouse to whole mouse - unless I chop them up myself, (and even then I'm not convinced they'll take to whole pray) and I admit I'm a little freaked out by that idea.
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