|
Post by abbeytheferret6 on Aug 3, 2016 7:17:03 GMT -5
These are really too dense. chewing on chunks of meat will help strenghen jaw--even som chicken bones are too dense---like legs.
Do you have any Asian stores nearby? They usually have frozen quail. Some feed gizzard whole---other's thinly slice them, which helps with jaw strength.
The legs in adult rabbits are really hard, but you can use the ribs and end of forefront legs. I go for the smaller rabbits. (my senior has a tiny chip off canine, and I do not serve dense bones. Maybe she got it from just cracking small bones as she is a good bone eater)
If any hunters in family or circle of friends, squirrel is great. Of course hunt in season. Dove also.
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Aug 3, 2016 11:20:23 GMT -5
I'll try the chunks tonight! Ideally, I'd like to get her on at least 6 different proteins (or more!) that I can find "locally" (within 2 hours)! But of course, I'll do anything I need to for her! I'm trying to figure out what cuts of the meat I should buy, though. I'm pretty sure anything I buy at the Asian Market will be whole and natural (minus feathers/fur and they would sell organs as well)...It's fine to a point, but I'll have to watch a YouTube video or something on how to cut up a whole quail, rabbit, or duck. I'm also not sure if my knife could handle it since it barely is able to cut through chicken bones in the chicken wingettes. Here is my look-out-for list: Fowl -Chicken necks, hearts Duck necks, general meat/bone, organs, whole duck Turkey necks, general meat/bone, organs Quail general meat/bone, eggs (?), whole quail Cornish Game Hen general meat/bone, organs Other -Lamb muscle meat, organs Goat muscle meat, organs Deer muscle meat, organs Rabbit muscle meat, general meat/bone, organs, whole rabbit Bison muscle meat, organs Should I buy her bone-in pieces of lamb, goat, deer, etc? I know she can eat chicken bone, will she strengthen her jaw enough to eat the others? Rabbit is also almost impossible to find in the part of Texas I'm in so that I might just have to order. The fattier the better. So chicken cuts you ideally want the thigh. Beef is usually a little fattier so the bed stew meat should have a good amount on there. Duck and pork are your fattier meats out of all of them. My kids love duck. A general rule is to make sure you have at least one red meat in your menu so that she is getting enough iron. Also if you want go to Walmart there should be a meat cleaver there for like 13 dollars and those cut through bone like a charm! Another general rule about bone in meats. You can feed anything none weight bearing. So chicken wings ribs necks stuff like that works. Quail you can feed anything on them. Duck no legs. But you can feed them wings neck ribs and feet. Cows, lamb, pigs, and goats are all too dense to feed bone in so when I use those types of proteins I only use them as muscle meats in my menu. Same with rabbits I only feed the ribs and I cut off all the other meat.
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Aug 3, 2016 11:24:09 GMT -5
abbeytheferret6 - Thank you for your advice! I figured those would be a little too much for her! I don't have any Asian stores nearby, but I know the owner of the one in the town I'm going to August 11th and I know she has quail and sometimes duck. I have chicken gizzard - should I use the gizzard as an AM meal and then use the beef soup with thin slivers as the PM meal one day this week? Unfortunately, I don't know any hunters, but considering my area, it's likely I'll meet some at my new university. Thanks again!! @morgan2247 - The beef soup with the tiny slivers went well! I ended up putting three small, penny-sized chunks of stew meat in her bowl last night along with the soup and they were all gone by morning!! Her stool looks AWESOME, so that's a huge relief for me. I do have a question, I probably sound like a broken record but...I'd like to give her a chicken wingette tomorrow AM, then the beef stew with very slightly bigger slivers of beef stew meat tomorrow PM. Is that okay since her stools are normal and she's not reacting negatively to the beef? Good for it try her on the gizzards. The gizzards would be considered a muscle meat and they do help strengthen the jaw muscles to help eat bone better. Let's see those beef poop pics! Sure give her a wingette and see if she will eat more of the bone. We want her eating bone in meals and muscle meals so we can get her off the soup and onto a regular menu. Try adding bigger chunks and see what she does. If she eats those offer her some stew meat by them selves and see if she will eat them without the soup.
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Aug 3, 2016 12:03:22 GMT -5
All of her stools since eating beef have all been firmer and look a lot less seedy to me. I haven't seen any crazy, mucousy or watery stools either. Overall I'm pretty happy about it! Do they look okay to you? I just tried her on bigger slivers of the beef stew and she ate them fine! I gave her a piece of beef stew meat right before I gave her more soup, and she dashed off with it and probably stashed it somewhere In the meantime, I made a meal plan for the next couple of days that's...not really a meal plan: 3/8 AM - Beef Stew Soup w/bigger slivers (given)3/8 PM - Chicken Wingette on bone 3/9 AM - Beef Stew Soup w/bigger slivers 3/9 PM - Chicken Gizzards Not to bad!! They look good. Keep up the good work! I am glad she's eating the chunks by herself. If you want you can try her with pork again and see where her poops go with that. But the "meal plan" is fine. I am pretty excited about you getting other proteins on the 11 so we can really get her on a menu
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Aug 3, 2016 20:00:51 GMT -5
I was running an errand and I suddenly had the idea to go to the health food store to see what meat they had and lo and behold their stock included: -Lamb - shoulder and ground -Bison - ground -Buffalo - ground -Elk - ground -Deer - ground (pretty sure I saw some deer meat pieces too) -Turkey - ground -Duck - whole -Chicken - (everything but organs, necks, and feet) -Pork - (everything but organs, feet) -Beef - (everything, including liver, but no other organs) The only problem right now is the price tag, so I will be buying them one at a time instead of all these new proteins at once. I would like to try her with pork again, then move on specifically to deer. My reasoning is that I'm sure I can get deer year round here, so that is a permanent protein if she'll eat it. Then, her health permitting, she could definitely have chicken, beef, pork, and deer readily available. I'm only supposed to introduce her new proteins one at a time until she can eat whole pieces of them, right? That's awesome that you found all of those! The reason I was having you do one protein at a time was to make sure she didn't have any reactions like allergic reactions to any protein. You don't want to introduce a bunch of proteins at a time and then have an allergic reaction to one out 5 proteins. Then you have to back track each protein to figure out which one is upsetting her tummy. If you offer her decent size pieces of a protein and she just eats them then no need to make a soup out of it. Now I do make a soup out of my organs so that my babies eat an equal amount of kidney and liver. Sometimes if they are being picky that day I get a grind from my freezer thaw it out and I put my organs in the food processor make them all soupy like then add the grind to the food processor so it's nice and mixed and they eat it that way too. There are a couple ways to feed organs because most ferrets don't like them.
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Aug 3, 2016 23:28:55 GMT -5
I know - it was a complete surprise! Right, I definitely want to stick with one protein at a time! Did we ever decide if she was good on chicken? Her stools are definitely better on beef, but it didn't seem like she had any major issues with chicken, right? She's still kind of iffy with eating the beef stew chunks, so I will keep making the chunks larger until she's eating them whole consistently. As for the grounds, since that is mainly the only thing I can find, it's just the meat from the animal ground up - no organs or anything. This is fine to feed her as a muscle meat meal? As long as she's eating the bone in the bone-in meals, her teeth shouldn't be affected then either? I also highly doubt Piper will ever eat organs outright. When I tried her with the whole pieces she wanted nothing to do with them, so I will also try to make a soup out of it I think. I could then add them to, say, the ground turkey and feed it as a meal? It shouldn't throw off anything diet-wise? I wouldn't consider any issues with chicken. Anything ground is considered a muscle meat unless you get grinds and grinds are muscle meat, bone, and usually organs. As long as she's eating bone in meats her teeth will be clean. Yes if she likes turkey you could use turkey to mix up in her organs so she can't pick out the good stuff she has to eat it all.
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Aug 4, 2016 12:15:25 GMT -5
I don't feed chicken because 2 or 3 can't handle it so it's not a protein in my house. That poop still looks funky. Have you given her maybe a wing tip to gnaw on?
Don't add any more egg shell to the wingette you don't want to overload her with bone. There are levels to which a ferret can be sensitive to chicken. So hers might be a minor issue with it so let's try something different. Have you seen Cornish game hens around? They are basically smaller chickens but slightly different. Some ferrets with minor chicken issues sometimes do good with CGH.
It's not a biggy I am glad I can help you out. I was pretty lost when I started my switch thread. I am sure you saw.
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Aug 4, 2016 12:16:34 GMT -5
Update. Piper definitely CANNOT have Chicken. She's been vomiting and everything that has come up has been chicken. Has she eaten anything else? I just want to make sure she hasn't eaten something she's not supposed to.
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Aug 4, 2016 12:29:54 GMT -5
Definitely not, I've checked every inch of the apartment and nothing is on the ground that she could have gotten to...I actually 'dug through' her vomit and it's all just chicken...She hadn't had beef at least 3 hours before I gave her the chicken and had a stool before I fed her any chicken...it was a long time before she had any reaction like this to it, is that normal, or would she have thrown up immediately after ingesting any the first time? She's running around like normal now, but she looked incredibly confused while it was going on, kept coming over to me and staying there, poor thing A reaction can happen at anytime. She could eat chicken all her life and then it pops up as an allergy. Not surprised most ferrets can't handle chicken. Let's keep the chicken out of her diet for a week and then try it again one more time. Ferrets don't like throwing up its very upsetting for them. So she came to you because you are mom and she was looking for comfort. She's okay, make sure to have her drink some water and offer some beef soupie.
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Aug 4, 2016 13:14:55 GMT -5
I started off in this world lactose intolerant, gained a tolerance for it early in life, then developed lactose intolerance again in my later teens. I didn't really think animals/ferrets could be the same, I feel more and more ignorant every time I read up on ferret health...I just got a free ebook on ferret first aid from ferret-world, so I think tonight I'll be taking some notes. I hope I didn't sound like I was freaking out! I tried to stay calm about the whole situation... I'm thawing some beef soup out in some warm water as I type. She drank some water and is normal now in any case. I'll try her again on chicken in a week unless I find Cornish Game Hen (I'm able to go into town to find some tomorrow, the town an hour away has a Walmart), then I'll try her on that instead. Do some ferrets have reactions to pork as well? I still need to try her on that. You are fine. Ferret health is very complex as they exotic animals and there is a lot of unknown about certain diseases. You will be fine. Keep doing your research and you will understand stuff in no time. Sounds like she just had an upset stomach don't be alarmed if she had a funky poop after that episode. Walmart should have Cornish game hen they are cute and little and easy to find. Any ferret can have an allergy to any meat. My Freya had a mouse and 2 hours later and threw it up everywhere. Haven't tried her on mice since. It makes me wonder if she's allergic or there is something wrong with the mouse.
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Aug 4, 2016 14:14:12 GMT -5
Keep an eye on her. Keep having her drink water. FYI animals that are blocked up like a blockage won't drink or eat anything so if she's drinking and eating she's fine. If you have 100 % pumpkin around you can give her a couple tsp to help push out what ever is upsetting her tummy. I don't usually recommend pumpkin unless it's needed.... but in this situation you might want to 2 tsp should be good enough.
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Aug 4, 2016 20:09:30 GMT -5
Is she pooping okay? If she is and is not vomiting no you don't need pumpkin.
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Aug 4, 2016 20:24:25 GMT -5
Perfect sounds like she will be okay
|
|
|
Post by abbeytheferret6 on Aug 5, 2016 8:59:58 GMT -5
how to cut up chicken---note she says, once the back is cut in half(tail part from rib part), U can cut those pieces in half too. I cut vertically.
If ferret is sensitive to cornish and you r not a vegetarian ----about 370 degrees for an hour and 10-15 min for human consumption. I throw the whole bird in oven;) pretty good----although i do cut off wings and back for animals sometimes. There is the rock cornish at walmart too, I think by prestige farms. It is even smaller than cornish.
Grinds should have ground up bone in it. Check website or phone or email the company. Legs may still be too dense.
|
|
|
Post by abbeytheferret6 on Aug 5, 2016 10:35:44 GMT -5
Oh I thought u were talking about grinds for animals. They put in bones and organs.
|
|