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Post by Deleted on Feb 28, 2016 10:45:27 GMT -5
I'll check out that show! And I will be getting private bred ferrets somehow, some way...when I have the room and funds Bwahaha Ferrets have quickly become my hobby/obsession. I want them all!!! Jk jk And bull testicles, blegh! Lol
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Post by Deleted on Feb 28, 2016 10:56:48 GMT -5
I'll check out that show! And I will be getting private bred ferrets somehow, some way...when I have the room and funds Bwahaha Ferrets have quickly become my hobby/obsession. I want them all!!! Jk jk And bull testicles, blegh! Lol The PBS special is such fun. In August in Ohio is the annual Ferret Buckeye Bash. I don't know how close you are to it but GFountain and I are going. Pam Van Overloop will be there and so are some others from the forum. I believe Heather Downie is going and I'm hoping Unclejoe will be able to go. Bull testicles...totally yucky but apparently yummy.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 29, 2016 8:59:21 GMT -5
That's cool. Ohio is the opposite side of the country from me. Maja, how did your show go?
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Post by Deleted on Feb 29, 2016 12:19:11 GMT -5
That's cool. Ohio is the opposite side of the country from me. Maja, how did your show go? She is probably asleep. Do you know about tagging someone? Hover your cursor over their name and see how it's spelled. Names don't always pop up the way they are listed. Sherry for example shows up as admin. Put the @sign in front with no space and when you post then if you did it right, their name will show up in bold and they'll get notified. I'll tag you @funkelt Also are you aware of the Facebook HFF page? If you aren't then we can get you added since it's a closed group. Maja had posted some pictures of the show.
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Post by maja01 on Mar 1, 2016 5:11:01 GMT -5
Hi. We are back. The show was great, there were 120+ ferrets who were competing in the "beauty" part and few more who were there for fun races (tube racing, slalom) and for pair showing. And a lot of nice ferret people. Gusztav did great, he was first in a group of junior (from 2015) black sable males and third among all junior males. And he did get good points - 98 out of 100. We also did breeding evaluation and he was also good graded (same points). All in all it was great, but I was so exhausted, it is "a bit" too much to drive alone 1500+ km in two days with lack of sleeping (well, the plan was that I would be acompanied with two friends, but at the end they could not go due to a work). I will upload pics sometimes this week. This was the ok part ... But, ... in the meantime on saturday Chili (my old one with ibd) crashed. He refused to eat anything on his own on saturday evening, so my bf was syringe feeding him. When we came back on sunday, the first thing was to check him, give him meds and feed him. He was like really pale and before I gave him meds for stomach, I couldn't feed him more than 8 ccs And he bit me. After meds obviously kicked in, I was able to get some proper amount of food into him. Since thursday he has lost a lot of weight ... Yesterday in the morning we went to the clinic and he was severely anemic, with his hematocrite (pcv) down to 13 (instead of 45 or so). He must have been bleeding somewhere inside - probably is a gastric ulcer, since everything else is clear. Plus he is still loosing proteins due to ibd. We did a transfusion (Gusztav was a donnor), he got coagulation therapy and we put him back on full anti-helicobacter therapy. In the evening he was much better, eate on his own a full portion of "smoothied" rabbit. I fed him twice during the night (to make sure he eate + give meds). We will check blood parameters in few days + do an US. So ... how are we doing with Aris's and Arya's transition? I would still like you to fill in that weekly menue form, so we can see where we are. Where you feed soupies, just write that down. It would be much easier to follow things up and to make sure the diet is balanced.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 1, 2016 7:08:03 GMT -5
maja01I'm sorry to hear about Chili. It's so sad to watch them when they are sick and so hard to know they are getting older.
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Post by maja01 on Mar 1, 2016 7:31:35 GMT -5
For me is the hardest when i know they have such short lives because of their past (Chili is a rescue and really one of those ferrets who will never be normal due to a conditions they have lived in or the way they were treated). Well, genetics does not give him any favour, but with better start I am sure it might have been longer life and with not so much health issues.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 1, 2016 7:43:04 GMT -5
For me is the hardest when i know they have such short lives because of their past (Chili is a rescue and really one of those ferrets who will never be normal due to a conditions they have lived in or the way they were treated). Well, genetics does not give him any favour, but with better start I am sure it might have been longer life and with not so much health issues. I understand. We can't save them all but with people like you who do rescue work and all the lovely ferrents on the forum and on other forums including vets who care and the people who teach then perhaps we will all make a difference to those little ones who will have a better chance at life and love and happiness.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 1, 2016 21:46:10 GMT -5
Thanks, Ponce. I am on the HFF Facebook page. Maja, do you have the same name on there? Congratulations to Gustov! And I'm sorry to hear about Chili 1. Ferret's name: Arya & Aris 2. Ferret's weight: 2.2 & 2.8 lbs 3. Ferret has eaten 2oz on average per meal 3x/day 4. Stools have been consistent and normal for both. They are not as runny as last weeks pork introductuon. They have decided they no longer like to use litter pans though...And the hate the new carpet I put in their play room, they covered every bit in poop n pee. I imagine it must have had an offensive scent from the store. 5. Activity levels: Rambunctious during play time but longer periods of sleep, especially the girl. Otherwise totally alert and playful. 6. Weekly menu: Chunkies-pork meat, beef heart, beef liver. Chicken meat, heart, and liver. Chicken heart, liver, and rabbit meat. Beef meat, pig heart, and chicken liver. Some gizzards, quail eggs, and trout for treats. Worth mentioning- I got shower hooks and connected a half rack of rabbit ribs to the cage. They don't care about it at all. I've been sneaking rabbit into their regular chunky meals to get them used to the taste. They will eat a bit but ignore the ribs. Their buddies Chaos, Roscoe, and even baby Sheldon tore into it like no tomorrow, eating bone and all so they know what theyre supposed to do. Arya and Aris sat back without a care. We are home now with their own rack o rabbit ribs and they still aren't interested. I left it in the cage for the night as their evening meal. I will continue putting small ribs and wings and other bone in meals up like that to get them used to it. I'm thinking when they're bored at 4AM they will mess with it for fun. I got all 5 ferrets crickets! I thought the hopping and movement would pique their interest and get them hunting like the live mouse did but not a single ferret paid the crickets any mind at all, even when said crickets were jumping on them... Lastly, not important but it was funny to me- My roomies cat snuck into the ferret room when I was in the bathroom. He is a successful hunter so I feared the worst but my guys had it handled. I found him as high up on the couch as he could get while Arya and Aris circled from below like curious sharks. He was terrified and jumped onto me and out. Kitty learned his lesson but won't be left unsupervised again lol
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Post by maja01 on Mar 2, 2016 5:41:36 GMT -5
My FB screen name is Maja Čonč. I belive I have posted ribbons pics only in admin/mentors group. I haven't uploaded any other pics yet - since this thing with Chili started when I got home. Yesterday I slept for most of the day, I had to catch up with sleep ... Still in minus from weekend and these nightly feeding and therapy times don't help at all ... Ok, so it was a pork. We might see this kind of change of poop when we will start them on some new kind of meats It might be the smell - and they are trying to cover it with their own ... Like marking. Probably this is also the reason why they don't use litter pans - if you have not changed anything else. I don't know how big the carpet is - but what I would do is to clean the carpet and when putting it back I would put some blankets, sheets, old t-shirts, ... over it. They usualy (!) don't poo and pee on them. If you can post a pic of a set-up it would help with comenting what to do It is good! We have a lot of protein variety. What would we like to do now is to get them eat bone and to add at least one more source of organ (we only have liver now). What do you think it would be the easiest to get? Atm we are light on calcium. Are they still eating some soupie in wich you put bone meal in? Or are you putting bone meal on the chunks? Plus I would like you to start record your menue in this kind of form (this is just an example of how I would like you to write it down, not actual maneu): monday: AM: chicken hearts with bone meal; MID: beef chuncks; PM: chicken gizzards tuesday: AM: soupie; MID: pork chunks; PM: rabbit ribbs wednesday: ... It is great that other three fuzzies know what to do with it and did really good job for the first time - just keep giving it to them that way. But, don't allow this to frustrate you, some are quicker in excepting new stuff, some need more time and adjustment. We will get them to gnaw bones in the end We will start with bones really slow. They obviously need some intermediate phase before we go to bones in pieces. Do you have a cleaver? You can crush the softer bones with it - they will get all nutrients from it and they will not be disturbed by the different structure. The other thing what we will do as an intermediate phase is we will start them on that cartilage from chicken breast (cartilage is the white, softer part - you can cut it with knive, on the other end there is some bone which is also good for start as it is pretty soft). Nutritionaly cartilage and bone is not the same, ther is not (so much) calcium in cartilage, but is stil nutritious (might find it funny, but it counts as meat ) and what is a good side - it has harder structure than meat, but still softer than bone. You will cut chunks (the normal size they are eating right now) of chicken breast and in the midle there will be small amount of this cartilage. If you don't imagine what I am talking about, I will post pics of how to crush the bone with cleaver (just have some fresh rabbits for Chili and will show you on rabbit ribbs) and a drawing what I meant with this cartilage chunks. ) They didn't really recognise it as food/prey. It is the same as with any other new protein (or stage of chunk size) we are giving them here. Most of cats don't see ferrets as prey, even tough they are great hunters. I have six cats (+ here and there to some fostering) and two of them are in and outside cats (four are strictly indoor). We took them with us from the previous place when we moved last summer, since we were carring for them over there at the old place. They hunt all kind of mice and voles (they leave birds alone) and before we started feeding them, they just eate what they cought. Anyway ... they are both slighlty scared of all ferrets and when they are all in the house, cats (all of them) go off ferret's way ...
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Post by Deleted on Mar 2, 2016 10:57:05 GMT -5
Alright, I'll start writing the menus your way haha and the chunky recipient is 1tsp bone meal, forgot to say that. They ate the meat off the ribs this morning but not the bones. I will crush them and reoffer it at lunch meal. I don't remember if I mentioned but I bought salmon oil. They could care less. I lve been putting a little in their food to get them used to it. The carpet I'm talking about is just a small square I put under their potty paper. There's another one on the other side of the room that they absolutely refuse to potty on. I got both at the same time and place so Idk lol Although it just occurred to me that the carpet they are abusing is the one I used to cover the corner of the carpet they had torn up. I think they're just mad it's too heavy to crawl under to get to that spot. They get obsessive about tearing up my carpet :>( I have a larger rug to cover most of the room and they dig the actual carpet all around it trying to get under so either my carpet gets torn up or I remove the rug and my carpet gets stained (2yr old in the house). I swear ferrets are just like my toddler! It might be a good idea to post pictures of their play area; I can work on that. I let them play most the day in my daughter's room with a baby gate across the door so I can check on them, though usually we're in there with them. All of morganas small toys and stuffies (Aris will try to eat the eyes and noses) stay in the livingroom toybox. It's pretty ferret proof. They have been bored though because when they're at my sisters she has the entire basement mostly ferret proofed and they have a much larger roaming area. I have noticed when my guys are home they are sweet, gentle, and cuddly but just like kids, when they get around their friends they don't want anything to do with me, start (play) nipping, and generally acting wild lol Then it takes a day or two home for them to remember they're civilized beasties. I'm on Ferrets Dookin in the USA and the ferret rehoming sites looking to adopt a 3rd. If something happens to one I don't want the other to be alone. Surprisingly there are a ton of willing rescuers in Roanoke, VA and no ferrets to be had lol The local rescue won't let me adopt because I have a child under 5. Wish me luck haha
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Post by Deleted on Mar 3, 2016 15:54:30 GMT -5
Today was vaccine day! Aris and Arya got their 2nd distemper shots and a dose of Revo. They were given benadryl before hand and kept for a 30 min reaction observation. What should I be looking for as far as reactions to the vaccines and flea treatment? In a couple weeks we will get rabies done. The vet is telling me a fecal test should be done. Is this neccessary/a good thing to get done or are they just trying to get extra $$$? Also, the vet has a much better scale and it turns out I've been off on their weights. Makes me wonder if my scale itself is off and if I've been feeding them the wrong weights in meat !!! Aris 1.13kg /aprox 2.5lbs Arya .91kg /aprox 2lbs
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Post by Deleted on Mar 3, 2016 18:19:29 GMT -5
How did they do at the Vet's? Did they have fun when everyone paid them all that extra attention aside from the shots which no one likes. You can expect some light poops from the vaccines. Don't let those frighten you. I'll let maja01 answer the other medical questions since she is studying to be a Vet and has much more experience with medical questions. Look in your pantry for something like a can with a weight written on it and put it on your scale. That should tell you if your scale is off and needs to be calibrated. Then when you go in for the next vet visit bring it with you and check it against theirs.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 4, 2016 0:25:52 GMT -5
They seem to be okay. The one vet tech had never seen a ferret in person and the other said they had to research the dosage for ferrets so I was quite alarmed at their lack of ferret knowledge. Also, they weren't supportive of raw feeding at all and tried to sell me their kibble, blegh! These are the same people that called the Center for Disease Control on my friend when she went to have her rescue put down so I was weary but the only other ferret vet here charges more than double. Yay lol
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Post by maja01 on Mar 4, 2016 5:04:00 GMT -5
Hi. Just watch for next few days for any strange poops, vomiting or lethargy. Most of adverse reactions happen in the first hour - that is why is best to either let stay the ferret at the vet office for so long or to stay somewhere near the clinic. We, at our uni clinc - allways keep them for at least two hours. For the first hour is acctualy somebody doing "ferret watching", since those fast reactions can happen in literally few seconds. From allright and ok, a ferrte can in just few seconds come to projectile bloody diarhea (most common reaction). Anyway, there is another type of reaction - wich is not life treathening - that occures later (in a day or two after vaccination). It is mild, like some strange (runier) poops, one or two vomitings, slightly less active. It does not need intervention, but if this happen, we keep even more care at next vaccination, since it is pretty much prediction that ferret might have a severe reaction ... As it goes for fecal scans - I do it allways at the time of accuering a new ferret. Before we do anything else, we take a look at his poop in house and at the same time send it to lab. But it is fairly cheap procedure here ... like 18 eur (less than 20 $). I would suggest - i f you are to get another ferret, than do it (and do it with him too). You can make a common sample (poops from both in one sample) since they live together and none have clinical signs. If one has something .. the other would have it to (acctually, you sister's ferrets would have it too). I would not worry about weights - if the scale is wrong for their weights, it is "same wrong" for the food weights too. And until they eat as much as you give them, the weight stays the same and they are ok, it really does not matter if you feed them 2 oz. or in reality 1,9 btw, don't know what kind of scale do you have, but digital kitchen scales are usualy pretty accurate. One thing to keep in mind is to put in on hard flat surface when you are weighting them. Ouch ... I remember that story with that poor ferret. In my opinion - they are not much usefull and would still try to check it with other vet. Those might be ok and cheaper for for some minor stuff liek vaccination, but eventualy you will need (I hope that not before than in few years from now) a vet that is knowledgable with ferrets. They do differ a lot from cats and dogs. And when it comes to their illneses ... you need someone who can diagnose and treat them right. We had a very hard day again yesterday ... I was at the clinic with Chili again, he was again all white. The blood results were even worse than on monday, his pcv was now 8 (this is like loooooooow - normal is 45+, at 20 you do transfusions ...). We also did US and it is not encouraging, his mesenterial lymphnodes are enlarged, his stomach wall has thickened wall on one side ... it is all very suggestive to lymphoma. We had really hard time to get cannula in his vein - I guess we spent 11 or 10 of them before we got one in his hind leg ... One would ask why to do all this ... well, he is doing surprisingly ok, runing around the house, begging when I prepare his food and he eats from 1 to up to 1,7 oz. per meal (i feed him at least 6 times daily). And it is no force feeding, he eats soupies atm, but still ... So, until he will be that way, we are going to fight ...
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