Live Prey Timeline?

[Deleted]

I have two ferrets, Artemis and Apollo

They are both raw fed, and both 6 months old. 

I intended to just raw feed both (with frankenprey) but lately I've noticed something with Artemis: she loves being predatory with small furry toys. Cat toys, etc. Those rabbit fur covered fake mice. She loves taking them, giving them very predatory shakes, seizing the back of their necks, chewing the fur, etc. I think she would take very well to live prey, but I'm not sure apollo would do the same. 

My question is this: will she lose this instinct if it's not encouraged? If she really loves live feeding I don't want to inhibit her, but I don't to only LP feed her while Apollo isn't. Should I try to get him on LP as well? 

Any suggestions would be great. 

[Heather]

Live prey....you're of course very limited to basically mice. If you want her to hunt and she's a satisfactory hunter that doesn't mean that her partner has to enjoy hunting or will miss out on anything if she hunts and he doesn't. The one thing to remember is that just because they show the instinct to hunt doesn't mean they will be a good hunter and even worse if they will understand what to do with it once they've killed. I've had a number of excellent hunters, who would kill for their friends who wouldn't, couldn't or shouldn't. Also remember that if your little hunter botches the job or gets a good nip and refuses to complete the job you have to be able to step in and finish it. A ferret kills in seconds and unlike a cat does not play with their food.
ciao

[Deleted]

Thanks! I just wasn't sure if it was a 'use it or lose it' instinct. I suppose the only thing to do is to test her out and see how she does. It sounds dumb, but it didn't occur to me to have her make the kills for the apollo if he wasn't willing! I'm not sure how he'll do with whole prey, but he is a very adventurous little eater (my rolly polly chunky boy lol) and I don't think I'll have the issue of him being fussy, just maybe a little confused.

I have no trouble jumping in if she botches a kill. I'm a bow hunter myself, and my favorite game of choice is rabbit so I'm used to dispatching small fuzzy rodents lol.

I'm going to look through the threads more and see about maybe killing a mouse by CD and presenting her with a fresh kill and see how it goes from there. Thanks so much for your help!