|
Post by Deleted on Feb 11, 2017 9:49:33 GMT -5
Hi everyone! I'm super excited to get started on my transition thread and I know you can't get a mentor right away so I'm going to start here with any updates, thoughts, etc. It turns out the grocery store I go to sells things like livers, lungs, and hearts, which means I should be able to feed my ferret without even going to another store regularly! I'm disabled and going out extra is difficult (hence why I felt OK getting just one baby—almost ALWAYS home) so this is great news!! Partner & I heading to the grocery store for our usual trip and to pick up some stuff for the transition Soupie tonight!
|
|
|
Post by Sherry on Feb 11, 2017 12:05:40 GMT -5
Fantastic! Looking forward to following along with your journey
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 11, 2017 18:05:37 GMT -5
HE GOT HIS FIRST RAW! I'm so so proud of how well he took to it! yesterday was the first day we had him and he only ate his kibble and refused some fresh raw fish entirely, and he is at least a year old, so I wasn't expecting this. The food. Available at my local grocery store! Chicken thighs, a mix of hearts and jiblets (picked out the hearts) and chicken liver. Opened. Partner & I are vegetarian and grossed out by meat so there were a lot of horrified faces but we persevered! Food from the soup recipe in the FAQ! Added slightly more water after this. Didn't go for it at first, but all I had to do was dab it on his nose and once he tasted it he was all over it. Then he excitedly ate slightly over a teaspoon before losing interest. Going to try again later for more!
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 11, 2017 20:46:38 GMT -5
Baby ate another teaspoon and a half from the spoon and from the bowl a little.
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 11, 2017 22:05:22 GMT -5
1.5 more teaspoons. I think it's safe to say he's moved passed kibble in one day!
|
|
|
Post by LindaM on Feb 11, 2017 23:42:11 GMT -5
I wouldn't take the kibble away quite yet, unless you're definitely sure that he will eat the soup in his cage overnight by himself.
I also saw your other thread, saying you also have a cat? I'd make sure that he can't get at the cat's kibbles, even more so if you aren't feeding a high-quality kibble diet to the cat, like the kibbles one would feed to ferrets too. Grocery store kibbles are like crack to ferrets, and it can side-track your progress and be very bad for him. So if your cat gets anything like Whiskas, Friskies, Purina, etc. be sure to keep it out of reach from the ferret. Though it's also possible for the ferret to just stop caring about kibble entirely once on raw. My two ferrets are free-roam and raw fed, and my cat is eating what is left of the kibble mix they once got when they still did partial kibble diets, but neither of my ferrets even touch the cat's kibble bowl anymore, instead they just go for their raw bowls.
You guys are doing great though! You've made an excellent start.
It can be pretty hard when you need to deal with meat when it grosses you out, especially if you don't eat it yourself, but I've found it's pretty amazing the lengths to which one can end up going when it comes to the best will of those that you love. I try to get as much of my stuff done in a single go as I can, it does sometimes mean spending a few hours in the kitchen chopping up meat and portioning it into labeled bowls, but after that I just freeze it all, and thaw whichever I need as I go.
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 12, 2017 0:02:21 GMT -5
Thanks for the advice! He did eat several more teaspoons out of a bowl, so I think he will probably eat it overnight just fine, but just to be safe maybe I'll put kibble overnight instead.
Our cat is currently on an awful kibble that I don't want either of them eating, but after seeing how doable this is I'm working on switching her to raw too! I also gave her some raw meat soup and she's actually taking to it a little less than our ferret, but she is eating it now and then, so it should be successful!
I totally agree about the things we do for those that we love.....I only got the little boy the day before yesterday and I cried in the car today thinking about the life he must have had before coming to us and how much I want to make sure it can be wonderful from now on. (shy)
|
|
|
Post by LindaM on Feb 12, 2017 0:10:30 GMT -5
If he's still happily eating the soup by himself all through tomorrow, then I'd probably remove the kibble. He sounds like he's doing great! And luckily, you can leave the soup overnight too. So go ahead and add a bowl of soup to his cage, and check it in the morning. He might surprise you and only eat the soup during the night and none of the kibbles. I've got Hades, my cat, on a mix of Wysong Digestive, Orijen, and NV Instinct kibbles. I've been trying to get rid of kibble entirely in our house, since my ferrets do not eat it, and catty has always had some tummy issues, but boy is he giving me all sorts of h*ll with it. I've been trying to just switch him over onto a canned diet the past few weeks, so I can take kibble away. But he's fighting me at every stage so far. He reacts worse to raw meat than water, just watching the ferrets eat the meat he will sit there horrified and do that disgusted paw shake they do. So it sounds like you are doing a heck of a lot better with your kitty than I am. So lucky! Aww.. it sounds like you're going to be an amazing parent to your little ferret. He's so lucky that he found a home with you guys.
|
|
|
Post by Sherry on Feb 12, 2017 11:40:18 GMT -5
He is doing well :boing: And yes, try removing the kibble if he is eating the soup on his own(not spoon fed). Odds are he is going to progress quickly. Just for the heck of it, try him with some slivers(the size of the crescent on your pinkie nail) of meat as well. You may have to pop one in his mouth a couple of times so he knows what to do with it.
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 12, 2017 17:43:29 GMT -5
Ok!!! Update: he had kibble for breakfast, since he woke up and ran and ate a handful of the cat's and I didn't want to mix with raw so I gave him some of his own. Throughout the rest of the day though, he had 10 teaspoons (1.7 ounces) of the raw! He's asleep right now, but I mixed two more teaspoons of the raw with some small slivers of chicken thigh and I'll try that when he's up. It looks just like the soupie did, so I have a feeling it will go just fine. (dance)
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 12, 2017 17:44:39 GMT -5
Ok!!! Update: he had kibble for breakfast, since he woke up and ran and ate a handful of the cat's and I didn't want to mix with raw so I gave him some of his own. Throughout the rest of the day though, he had 10 teaspoons (1.7 ounces) of the raw! He's asleep right now, but I mixed two more teaspoons of the raw with some small slivers of chicken thigh and I'll try that when he's up. It looks just like the soupie did, so I have a feeling it will go just fine. (dance) Oh yeah! and I did end up putting the raw in overnight because he was eating out of the bowl at dinner, and he ate it all overnight (other than a chunk he put in his water bowl for some reason.)
|
|
|
Post by LindaM on Feb 12, 2017 18:13:19 GMT -5
Excellent! It sounds like he's doing well with eating the raw soup by himself. I'd go ahead and take his kibble away then, and make sure he doesn't get a hold of the cat's again, like I said.. ferret crack. As for food getting in the water, it's part of why I clean my ferrets' water every day. And we also have a pet fountain in the kitchen that uses a filter, but the water in that also gets cleaned pretty regularly. Usually what happens is they grab a mouthful of food, realize they're thristy and try to keep the food in their mouth and drink at the same time.. some also wash their faces in the water, and some still try to wash or wet their food using their water bowls. They're pretty smart little buggers at the end of the day, just because it doesn't make sense to us, doesn't mean it didn't make sense to them at the time. Let us know how he does with trying some slivers of meat!
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 12, 2017 20:03:58 GMT -5
He ate a couple teaspoons of the thinly sliced chicken thigh when mixed with a bit (less than the meat)of the soupie! we are almost out of soupie so we're gonna try just the meat when he's hungry again. Oooh, thanks for explaining. Silly little catsnakes.
|
|
|
Post by LindaM on Feb 12, 2017 22:00:16 GMT -5
Whoo! You guys are doing really well. Let's keep it up and see how he takes to small slivers, if he starts to give troubles, you can try just doing a ground meat like ground chicken, pork or beef (preferably stay with chicken or maybe pork, they have milder smells and tastes, beef can be quite strong) and see if he'd eat that. But if he gives you no troubles with slivers on their own, you can just give slivers and see how it goes. As he continues to eat them well, you can slowly start making the sizes bigger.
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 12, 2017 22:40:17 GMT -5
Thanks so much for all the help! I'm so proud of how fast he's going, he's not even a baby.
|
|