M & D's raw menu

[Deleted]

Since Minna and Diesel already are on raw diet I would still like to improve their menus and make them more versatile. So as I said before I have 2 ferrets. I've had them since they were 8-9 weeks old. I believe that they aren't over- nor underweight. Diesel has big and masculine ferrets in his pedigree and Minna is a normal sized female ferret.

	Minna	Diesel
gender	♀	♂
birthday	18 April 2014	3 April 2015
health problems	none	none
weight	˜0,970 kg	˜2 kg

I'll add our weekly menu also.

Mon	Tue	Wed	Thur	Fri	Sat	Sun
chicken neck	chicken leg	chicken shoulder	chicken neck	chicken wing	chicken shoulder	chicken tail
duck hearts	gizzard	duck hearts	gizzard	duck hearts	lung	chicken liver
chicken skin			duck hearts	liver	gizzard	gizzard

Additionally (per week):
1x oil
1x quail egg OR 1x chicken egg yolk (depends which egg I have)
1-2x crushed egg shells

MY GOAL:
I would like to get a balanced but versatile menu. I am thinking of buying them pig heart, and veal meat, but would like to know what more should I add or give more/ less. Oh, sometimes I give them baby chics (when I get lucky at a pet store).


Thanks for all the help in advance!

[Deleted]

I'll add that sometimes they get chicken hearts and sometimes they get duck hearts, I'll try to get pig heart and veal meat next week from the market.

[raynebc]

Weight bearing bones (ie. legs, thighs) of larger birds like chickens are considered too hard for many/most ferrets to eat, necks and wings are perfect though for providing the required calcium. I'm not really sure about shoulder. Besides duck and chicken, you'll want to have a third protein (preferably not a bird) to increase nutritional variety, red meat (ie. beef or lamb) would be a good option.

Chicken tails appear to be extremely high in fat, if your ferrets have bizarre poop after eating a meal of this, you may want to mix it with something else. Are you going to feed chicken skin on its own or with something else?

Liver is mentioned in a couple different meals, but it should only make up about 5% of their diet (0.75 meals of a weekly diet of 14 meals). You can mix it with something else to make it easier to get this ratio (ie. 3 parts liver and 1 part muscle/heart meat). Feedback I'd received before about using lung as the non-liver organ was that it wasn't nutritious enough. A different organ like kidney could be a better choice.

Are you going to feed the egg shells by themselves or mixed with something? If you have 7 edible bone in meals in your menu, it probably won't be necessary for added calcium. I've read some people feed the shell along with the egg.  Bone meal might be more easily digested if you just wanted extra calcium, but reduce the calcium supplementation if their poops get really dry/hard.

[Deleted]

Got beef from the market, I'll give it on tuesday instead on chicken leg. Also got pig kidney from the market, Iäll give them that also. Will try to make up a new menu and then post it here. Thank you, for your help, raynebc!

[maja01]

Hi.
You are doing ok, but small changes to the menue are needed.

First - you want some more variety of meat - you need at least one more protein source (one more animal source), preferably red meat like beef, pig, deer - the bgger variety, better for them. Nutritional profiles of different animal sources differ and you want to cover all their nutritional need.
Beside those i mentioned above, you can feed mice, rabbits, rats, fish (occasionaly).

Second - you will need some more variety with organs. Liver are ok, but you have to add at least one other organ (gizzards count as meat, heart is also a "meat" with bonus value because of taurin). You have lung - but they are not exactly organ, they are something between organ and meat. So ... you have to try with kiddneys, spleen, testicles, ...

Third - I don't quite get some things and will need more detailed answers:
- when you feed chicken skin you only feed this? How much of it? I am asking because it is really high in fat and you don't want tofeed them just this. It is perfectly ok to leave skin on when giving other parts, just don't feed it separatly. Same goes for chicken "tails" - very high fat content - feed it fr instance with chicken backs (don't cut it off).

Fourth - eggs - give them whole eggs, not just yolk. If they get it once weekly, ther is absolutely no problem (i guess you are afraid of egg white and biotin binding stuff).

As far it goes for bones - when they get used to it, thay can perfectly well handle all chicken, quail and rabbit bones. How much of a tight bone do they eat now?

[Deleted]

Hi, thanks for helping me, maja01!

1) As I wrote, today I bought beef, I can also get pig meat, but fortunately i have no access to deer, but if I get lucky in the market, then sometimes I can also get lamb. And once a week, they sometimes get baby chics (can't feed them rats or mice, because before I got ferrets I had rats, and that feels wrong to me, this is my bad, I just can't feed them rats, sorry).

2) Today bought pig kidney and will add that to menu. I doubt that I get lucky enough to get something else from the market, but will keep my eyes open. So it would be better if I gave them less gizzards and at some days I'll replace gizzard with, for exaple, pig kidney, or will I give them both, at the same day?

3) I give hem chicken skin with duck hearts, but the piece they get is quite small, uhm about 3cm x 4cm piece. The other chicken parts that I feed them have the skin on they, so, yes, it's better if I don't give them extra skin. And I'll give them back and tails then together, thanks! But can I stil give the lung also or that isn't necessary at all?

4) I haven't got any quail eggs then I give them the yolk of a chicken egg. Heard somewhere that chicken eggwhite isn't good for them. Quail eggs they get with the shells, they crush and eat them as they like.

5) They have eaten meat for a really long time, and so far they have had no problem finishing a chicken leg. There is absolutely no bones left after they finish eating, and their poo is nice- not too hard and not too watery.

Hopefully answered all the quetions like you wanted

[Deleted]

Mon	Tue	Wed	Thur	Fri	Sat	Sun
chicken neck	chicken leg	pig meat	chicken neck	chicken wing	beef	chicken shoulder
duck hearts	gizzards	chicken hearts	pig kidney	duck hearts	gizzard	tails
liver	lung		duck hearts	egg

Feel free to correct me! i want the menu to be correct.

[Deleted]

You're doing well and I'm so pleased that you want to get your menu balanced.
Once your menu is balanced and you know they are eating a well balanced menu then we can submit the menu for approval to Heather. Once approved we will change your status to Raw Feeder.

Right now you're a bit heavy on chicken. Since chicken is a common allergen then you don't want the menu to have too much chicken. Look for quail, duck or rabbit for the smaller bones.

You said you bought beef and that's great. Veal is very lean so beef is better. Red meats are high in Iron and Vitamin B and you want one red meat meal a week.

You can build your menu to what suits your schedule but you will want to keep the percentages to stay balanced. Feeding Frankenprey is designed to mimic eating whole prey in the wild.

Organs are especially important to watch the percentages.
Liver is full of vitamin A and that is fat soluable so it remains in their system. For that reason we limit liver to five percent of what they eat in one week. The same goes for the 'other organ meat'.

Here is a basic Frankenprey menu. Take a look at this and then ask what questions you need clarified.

docs.google.com/document/d/1ysfT1bIvXixXYv6QFjW_EZZqHymtRXRTc3E_wAxLbxU/edit

Lovely job Ferrenting.

[Heather]

I would look to finding some other bone in meats than chicken. This is often the stumbling block for most people. Rabbit, quail, duck, turkey are a few other proteins that you could investigate. You are also low in bone in meats. The thought is to have approximately 7 to 9 bone in meals per week if feeding twice daily
ciao

[maja01]

1) Beef and pork are ok (plus you have chicken and duck - try get some other duck part, not just heart) + sometimes you can give them turkey (also pretty easy available), lamb and rabbit.
For sources try to look at butchers, markets and try finding some people that raise rabbits for food or for snake food (btw, and maybee ask some other ferret people where they get theirs meat - @emalendur is from Estonia too). Maybee you can ask at butchers for those leftovers - here sell them for dogs for instance and it is pretty cheap - usualy a mix of beef and pork. There are probably some raw feeding dog groups in Estonia - try finding them, they are a good source of information where to get cheap meats. I get beef from one of our members in Slovenian raw feeding group for 1eur/kg ...
Baby chicks are more a treat (it is great to give them - just don't give them too much. People sometimes get to excited and give them only baby chicks which is not ok since they lack calcium).

2)

So it would be better if I gave them less gizzards and at some days I'll replace gizzard with, for exaple, pig kidney, or will I give them both, at the same day?

You can not replace gizzards with kidneys. Kidneys are organ, gizzards are muscle meat.

3)

But can I stil give the lung also or that isn't necessary at all?

yes, you can. Feed it as organ (for instance 1/4 lung + 1/4 kidney + 1/2 liver would be an organ meal)

4)

I haven't got any quail eggs then I give them the yolk of a chicken egg. Heard somewhere that chicken eggwhite isn't good for them. Quail eggs they get with the shells, they crush and eat them as they like.

You can give whole chicken eggs. It is the egg white (from all kind of eggs) that is not recomended in too big quantities since it contains a protein called avidin which binds to biotin (vitamin from the B complex)

Ponces mom gave you the link to basic frankenprey menue, take a look at it and compare it. There are also some baselines writen how much of what you have to give ... So, compare it to your meal plan and see where and what do you lack. Try to put it more balanced together by yourself, than we will review it That way you will learn most.

chicken neck = bone in meat
chicken leg = bone in meat
pig meat = meat
chicken wing = bone in meat
beef = meat
chicken shoulder - cant really tell which part is it, but would guess it has bones in it ...
duck hearts, chicken hearts = heart/meat
gizzards = meat
pig kidney = organ
liver = organ
lung = "kind of" organ - you can feed it, just not only this and not too often

[Deleted]

maja01 gave you great advice. She's a Vet and a terrific new Mentor.
I buy duck gizzards (muscle meat) and duck hearts (muscle meat). That way I get pricey duck for much less. It's also really fatty and fat equals energy for ferrets.

You can buy alot of duck gizzards and hearts for very little cost at Asian Markets.
Good Find Asian Market near your location and then check Yelp for reviews of their meat section.
I have to drive an hour to the nearest one so we stock up once a month or whenever we find ourselves in Nashville.

[Deleted]

Thank you all for helping, so I made up a new menu, after reading the basics and it helped a lot and made it easier to build up a menu. Here it is...

Mon	Tue	Wed	Thur	Fri	Sat	Sun
chicken neck	turkey wing	chicken neck	chicken back	turkey neck	chicken wing	chicken leg
beef	chicken gizzards	duck hearts	turkey wing	duck hearts	chicken gizzards	pig liver
			egg	pig liver		lung or kidney
				pig kidney

[abbeytheferret6]

I think they are saying lung is not counted as an organ now---although I did have it in my old mentor's notes that it was---so kidney. If I am wrong someone will correct me But still good to feed--maybe as a snack???
I do not know if they would consider it a muscle meal or not .