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Post by Klarissa on Jul 29, 2015 13:23:53 GMT -5
Also his poop looks like normal kibble poop, just stinky. Ew.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 29, 2015 14:14:20 GMT -5
Ah okay. Kibble poops that smell like that aren't a good sign, but then again he has been through a traumatic experience and his digestive system may be off from stress. How is he feeling? Does he seem depressed? Has he played at all?
I remember when I was fostering a kibble-fed ferret named Kirk for about a month, mine had already been on raw fully for a while. After a day or two of him being hear, oh man, was it bad. He SMELLED. I don't mean just kinda stinky, I mean it was rank, it literally was as if a dead animal had crawled into his litter box and died 2 weeks before. But he was healthy, he played, ate, drank, etc and his poops looked normal. I think when you feed kibble you become immune to the smell, then when you switch to raw you get used to it being much better. So having to smell the kibble poop again can be a shock.
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Post by Klarissa on Jul 29, 2015 15:34:46 GMT -5
He is getting back to being a rambunctious ferret, last night he was hilarious & full of energy! My previous ferrets were all kibble fed, but they were on Orijen. They pooped a lot more than raw fed, but the poop didn't smell. Willy came on ZuPreem, which I think is why his poops smells so bad. I started giving him Orijen kibble, and it smells a lot less. Tonight the raw switch with Willy begins. Hopefully I can get him caught up to the girls.
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Post by FireAngel on Jul 29, 2015 17:29:25 GMT -5
Good luck tonight! With your patience and persistence I'm sure he'll be caught up in no time!
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Post by Klarissa on Jul 29, 2015 19:09:42 GMT -5
Thanks! I'm pretty sure patience & persistence are beside "ferret" in the dictionary.
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Post by Klarissa on Jul 29, 2015 20:06:35 GMT -5
*happy dance* Willy ate 1 tbsp of Trixie & Bear's raw soup, with nothing more than 1 tsp of ground kibble mixed in . I didn't thin it out at all, it's so thick you can turn the bowl upside down and it doesn't move I scruffed him for a minute or two, rubbing it on his mouth, and he quickly started to lick it up. Then I didn't have to scruff him, he would happily lick it off my fingers. I tried to get him their soup without the chunks, but I missed 2 pieces. Willy even ate one of the large chunks of fat/meat. So proud of the little fert. I think he will catch up FAST. Once I can get him to take it from the bowl, the only kibble he will get will be ground in with food to coax him into eating beef & meat chunks. The girls got some FDR duck in their chicken soup. Took a little coaxing, but they happily gobbled it up once they figured out I wasn't trying to poison them
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Post by Klarissa on Jul 31, 2015 8:27:13 GMT -5
More happy dances! Yesterday morning Willy ate raw from the bowl with coaxing, so I left our raw soup with some kibble overnight and he ate everything. I'm keeping a small bag of ZuPreem, but throwing out most of it. Yesterday I was making chicken thighs for dinner (for the hoomans) and decided to try it out with Trixie & Bear. I put a chicken thighs in a bag, beat it with a hammer, then uses bacon scissors to cut up the meat. I mixed it with a little soup, and the girls cleaned the bowl. It was VERY chunky. This weekend when I do food prep for the week, I will make soups, then have meat chunks aside for the girls to add to their soups. I'm confident Willy will catch up quickly.
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Post by FireAngel on Jul 31, 2015 10:10:42 GMT -5
Nice! I'm sure it won't be long until you hear the satisfying crunch of non smashed bones!
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Post by Klarissa on Jul 31, 2015 10:33:16 GMT -5
I'm really looking forward to the less food prep involved when I can just throw them whole pieces/prey and they eat it.
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Post by Klarissa on Jul 31, 2015 12:21:19 GMT -5
The "how much" switching from soup to thighs/wings, etc has me feeling so unprepared. I'm sure I will get a feel for it as I go. So, Trixie & Bear eat 20oz of soup a week. 10oz/per ferret/week = 1.4 oz /day/per ferret. So, if a chicken thighs weighs 1.5 oz, they split one for brekkie then get an organ meal (or whatever I have planned) or can they each get a thigh as their meal for the day? They never fight over food, and frequently eat from the same dish side by side. Do they need somewhere in their cage to hide & stash? I feed them in their cage after Trixie tried to stash the chicken thigh in a tunnel.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 31, 2015 12:24:42 GMT -5
Woot! Willy is doing great and so are Trixie and Bear. All wonderful news, you're doing very very well with them. They'll be eating whole meats and preys in no time! How many ounces are Trixie and Bear eating so far? It's good to keep track of this, in case their appetite increases/decreases. Typically ferrets eat less in the summer, I know my girl is, she's cut her food intake by nearly half since the beginning of the month. So nothing to fret about if they do. But in the first few weeks/months of the switch a lot of times they will eat you out of your house lol. The average amount for a female is 1-3 ounces, and the average for a male is 2-5 ounces (per day). My girl ate more like 8-10 ounces for the first month, then started to slow down, now she's at 2 ounces a day or so.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 31, 2015 12:29:03 GMT -5
We cross posted, oops haha.
If you'd like to let them split a thigh for breakfast, on frankenprey then for their next meal you would need a bone-in meal (they have to have at least 1 bone-in meal a day on that) but until they are on bone, you could do a thigh split for breakfast, and then if you want an organ meal for dinner (with maybe some extra bonemeal/eggshell powder so no super loose poops) that'd be just fine. Typically we like to do something different for AM/PM, but you don't have to.
As for the stashing, lots of ferts do this, you can set up a feeding den to prevent her from dragging her food all over the place, this seems to have worked for many people. Silly Trixie putting her chicken in tunnels (giggle)
Edit/Add: If you want you can post a list of all the meats/proteins and etc that you have on hand, and we can build a menu for you based on that.
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Post by Klarissa on Jul 31, 2015 13:27:54 GMT -5
On hand right now I have specifically for the ferrets (I have other stuff I was going to eat, but I don't mind sharing): 6 chicken backs 4 lbs of chicken grinds w bone 1lbs of ground venison with bone Chicken bones with meat attached (meant for stewing) Gizzard Chicken Liver 6lbs of chicken heart Stewing beef Orijen FDR duck Orijen FDR "Tundra" (venison & elk organs & bone) I also have chicken thighs bone in & chicken breast bone in. I'm going into the city on Sunday to pick up more liver, chicken backs, chicken wings, any organs they have, and cornish game hens, maybe some rabbit & duck. My husband is squeamish. I was showing him videos in another thread of ferrets eating whole rabbits, mice, rats, etc trying to show him its not that bad
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Post by Deleted on Jul 31, 2015 14:08:06 GMT -5
Okay, so with that list we can work on menu-building. It's great practice even if yours aren't on bone-in yet or eating every protein yet. I used to just make different menus every now again simply to practice, it can seem difficult at first, but eventually it becomes just another thing. I'll give you a sample menu and fill it in, and you can take that as sort of a guide to make your own. So the goal here is to have 3 proteins or more 7-9 bone-in meals, 3-4 muscle meat meals, 1.5 meal of hearts, 1.5 meal of organs, and at least 1 red meat. Keeping in mind that heart is a muscle and is one of the muscle meat meals. Monday AM: Chicken Backs Monday PM: Chicken Hearts Tuesday AM: Orijen FDR Duck Tuesday PM: Gizzards Wednesday AM: Chicken Breast (with bone) Wednesday PM: Chicken Heart & Liver (half and half) Thursday AM: Ground Venison Thursday PM: Chicken Thighs Friday AM: Orijen FDR Tundra Friday PM: Ground Chicken Saturday AM: Chicken Backs Saturday PM: Stewing Beef Sunday AM: Chicken Grind Sunday PM: Orijen FDR Duck This menu isn't 100% complete but it is good to start with, all you need is an "other" organ (pancreas, brain, spleen, kidney, etc), some more bone-in variety (chicken wings, duck wings, necks, etc) and if you'd eventually like to be off all grinds then some more muscle meats to choose from to replace those with. So far on that menu we have, 9 meals with bone (including the grinds and FDR) 4 muscle meat meals (1 being heart) 5 proteins (chicken, duck, venison, beef, elk) 3 red meats All that you need left is the "other" organ to make it a balanced menu, but, since the FDR and such has that, they're getting some of it. Next time you go out try to find some different proteins to try in muscle meat form, there is a lot of chicken on your menu, which is fine for now but eventually you'll want to spread it out more. After you buy some more things, I'd like for you to make your own menu and post it. Don't worry about balancing too much right now, we'll correct it if anything is off, I know the first few times I made my menu I made plenty of mistakes, lol, but it becomes second nature eventually.
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Post by Klarissa on Jul 31, 2015 14:38:35 GMT -5
I'm losing my mind trying to make separate meals for the girls & Willy. I may keep them on chunky soup until Willy has caught up. I think Willy will be caught up by next weekend, since in just 2 days he is off kibble. I also just contacted a rabbit meat farmer, see if I can get some meat rabbits, even if I have to butcher them myself. I'm also hunting down a whole prey seller, so 3-4 meals a week will be adult mice. If I get whole CGH (with organs) & half rabbits (with organs) those are balanced meals for a full day? I don't live in a small town at all, I'm really shocked we don't have a single Asian grocery store. But I will stock up Sunday on duck, rabbit, and get 6 whole CGH. I'm going to keep the grinds for now, until my husband becomes more proficient at making the ferrets meals. I'm the lone butcher at the moment I'm trying to figure out how many oz wings/necks/backs sure so I can figure out how many per meal. I promises my husband if we switched to raw meat, that I would make up weekly meal bags for each ferret, so all he has to do is check the menu board on the fridge and pull out the matching meat He's on board with the concept, less on board with the freezer/fridge full of dismembered animals, lol.
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