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Post by abbeytheferret6 on Apr 28, 2016 15:34:30 GMT -5
It takes my 4 girls two days to eat a guinea pig. So for those two days they r getting the liver, heart , kidney, and lungs. Then the other days of the week, they r getting mice and rats..... My abbey is always having diarrhea (dark ---no smell) with eating guinea pig.
Should I hold back organs and just serve it as frankenprey---any suggestions?
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Post by Celene on Apr 28, 2016 17:06:55 GMT -5
Is it just Abbey or all of the ferrets? How are her/their poops on the other days?
It is possible with the larger size of the guinea pig that she is avoiding the large bones and just focusing on eating the organs/meat only, leading to softer poops. Do you ever notice/see her crunching away at guinea pig bones? One other possibility is that she might simply have a sensitivity to guinea pig meat.
Do they get any other meals other than guinea pigs, mice and rats? Ferrets should have a wide variety of proteins in their diet - we recommend a very minimum of 3-4 different proteins each week, including one "red" meat (not necessarily a strict definition/requirement, but darker/red meats tend to be higher in iron and vitamin B12). This is that so they get a well-rounded balance of different vitamins, minerals and other nutrients.
If you are feeding only small rodents, I might suggest adding in some type of fowl/poultry (although chicken is a common sensivity in ferrets) or larger animal such as lamb, goat, beef, etc. There isn't a lot of information on the nutritional profiles of raw mouse, rat and guinea pig meat (given they are not generally consumed by humans) but my guess would be that they are all relatively similar nutritionally.
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Post by abbeytheferret6 on Apr 28, 2016 19:02:33 GMT -5
She is a very good bone eater. Chicken is out and Cornish hen too. Even with quail she has diarrhea, but I feed it to her once a week anyway. Duck hearts and gizzards give her diarrhea too. I give these on occassion as well. The vet at one time said she may have IBS. I have not tried beef but next time I go to farmers market I will get some. ( U.S. beef is tagged with homone something another in ears while in feedlots).
They will not eat HareToday rabbit, but I will order from Rodent Pro. I am making an appointment for her tomorrow to see about her leg(don't know if I will get in tomorrow tho)and will have vet check her stools just in case. She does best on mice. Other ferrets stools are soft, but she gets diarrhea.
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Post by Celene on Apr 28, 2016 19:47:51 GMT -5
If it is actually diarrhea and not regular liquid/soft "organ poops" then there may be an underlying conditionm and/or she may also have a guinea pig sensitivity. I *highly* recommend doing a protein elimination trial. I did one with Nova when she was having issues and it was a tremendous help! I also had a mentee with a ferret who was severely allergic to almost all proteins and we finally ended up getting him settled on a menu of rabbit, lamb and venison.
You can try beef, although it is a relatively common sensitivity in ferrets (compared to other meats). Lamb/mutton and goat are almost universally well-tolerated.
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Post by abbeytheferret6 on Apr 28, 2016 23:57:53 GMT -5
Celine,was rabbit her main bone supply?
Taurine from lamb and deer hearts?
She does alright with squirrel, but supply is so limited from the guy who gives them to me.
As much as I hate to think it, you may be right on guinea pig sensitivity, and she does luv them. Such a great bone in meal too:/
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Post by maja01 on Apr 29, 2016 5:17:02 GMT -5
If she is reacting to all "feathery" proteins, don't give them to her. It is only causing inflamation in her intestines. I would also for a while cut back on guinea pigs, to give some time to her intestine and microflora to recover.
You could do a full elimination diet for a while (pick one protein and feed it for aprox three weeks than slowly (week by week) add another), or start with those few that she is ok on and only feed this for a while and than try g.p. after let's say three weeks.
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Post by abbeytheferret6 on Apr 29, 2016 8:11:01 GMT -5
Thank you so much for that info------inflammation she would be getting eating from eating stuff she is sensitive to
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Post by Celene on Apr 29, 2016 11:32:35 GMT -5
Celine,was rabbit her main bone supply? Taurine from lamb and deer hearts? She does alright with squirrel, but supply is so limited from the guy who gives them to me. As much as I hate to think it, you may be right on guinea pig sensitivity, and she does luv them. Such a great bone in meal too:/ Rabbit was the only bone-in meat we could find that the ferret tolerated, however we replaced two of the "bone-in" meals with lamb sprinkled with (food grade) bonemeal so the diet wasn't too rabbit-heavy. Also, since rabbit is so lean and tends to be low in taurine, the ferret got an extra organ meal each week and we focused on fattier cuts with the lamb and venison. The organs were also a mix of lamb, rabbit and venison (heart, liver and kidney). Edited to add: I second maja01 's recommendation for a protein trial. I did one with Nova when she was having really bad diarrhea/digestion issues. Even though we did not learn anything I didn't really already suspect, having them on nothing but lamb for one week really did wonders for settling everything down! I fed them a (commercial) grind of lamb muscle, lamb heart, lamb liver and bonemeal powder and I think it really helped sooth her body having a week where it didn't need to deal with new proteins. She hasn't had a flare up since. Here are our pages on the protein elimination trial and IBD in ferrets. Once you do the trial and/or get her digestion settled down, you may find that you can get away with feeding guinea pig very occasionally without any major issues. |
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Post by abbeytheferret6 on Apr 29, 2016 12:01:57 GMT -5
I will check that out. Thanks, too
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