3 Protein Type & Balance ?

[Deleted]

Since Enzo is doing well with small meals throughout the day, I've been giving him a lot of mice, instead of the normal prey diet I have (which is a thourough mix of rat/mice/quail/guinea pig).

I am wondering, is it bad to feed him more of one type of prey than the others?  Say a day of only mice meals, and every other day is a day with other prey.  So 3/7 days out of the week he would only get mice all day.

I would just leave larger prey out but I am afraid he would eat it all at once (which he normally will with rats and guinea pigs) and not have more food until I get home from work.  With the mice I would have a family member drop a mouse in the cage in the middle of the day.

I am just not sure what would be better for his Insulinoma.  Can I please get some feedback on the situation?

[Bonbon]

Although I'm not feeding whole prey, I'm doing frankensp rey, my little ferret Bonbon grew bored of having one protein so much and thus is giving me trouble eating. He went from eating 3.5oz a day to like 0.8-1.0 oz a day for a meal. I just revamped my proteins and he's back to eating all the new proteins.

I'd just keep an eye on his eating habits sometimes they grow tired of a protein and won't eat as much or at all. So having mice a lot throughout the week may become an issue. Again I'm not an expert but I'd just keep an eye on that. 

[msav]

Right now mine are getting primarily ASF Rats, I give them, GP, Game hen, quail, and a heart and liver meal throughout the week. As long as you giving the different proteins they should be fine. It would take a few months for nutritional deficiencies to show up, of course we don't want to wait until those show up to make changes in their diet.

They will however start to get tired of eating the same food. Mine have stopped eating the entire ASF rat and are now only eating the heads so I am going to have to start switching the food up again. I will probably have to start culling and freezing the ASF rats again. Got way too many of them. 


BTW whole prey can last in the cage for 2 to 3 days and still be good.  I give them a sniff and if they start to smell they get tossed. so you can leave 2 days worth of mouse in there and they should last until they are eaten without them going bad. 

[Sherry]

As for being without food, a number of our members feed once a day. If he has no issues it won't hurt him. And it would be almost impossible to eat larger prey in a single sitting without becoming ill.