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Post by Sherry on Sept 9, 2017 8:17:13 GMT -5
Fireangel has the right of it- you are likely going to have to do a puree of half and half liver/other organ to get them all having everything. As to a straight meal of liver? It's too much. As it is liver would only be 3/4 of a meal maximum.
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Post by hiddenstars826 on Sept 11, 2017 13:09:13 GMT -5
No wonder my kids stink! Lol. Way too much liver. Ok. Darn. Back to the drawing board.
Tinker at least was spotted eating her organ meatz this morning! And making a project out of a chicken wing yesterday. She brought Chirpy Bird down to eat with her and dropped it in the food bowl while she ate. I later found Tink in bed, Chirpy Bird still in the food bowl with the rest of a chicken wing on top of it. Nice of her to try and share!!
I'd like to hold off on trying to make a soup as much as possible only because I don't have a blender...so hopefully Tink has gotten over herself and is starting to eat her organ meals again.
But...do I change it so one meal is liver and kidney as a 50/50 split, and the second meal is heart only...and a third meal all three mixed?
In terms of proteins, if I have beef heart (but no other beef), and pork liver and kidney, do those count as being 2 proteins in terms of rotation? Or is that not enough of pork, or beef, to count?
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Post by hiddenstars826 on Sept 11, 2017 13:12:57 GMT -5
Sorry for the delay. Peter's back to not feeling so hot. I did get him to eat a little bit of egg last night and some goose grind, which was a change of pace for him. He was pretty interested in the egg. I'm hoping to find an Asian market around with quail eggs for him as he loved those in past years. If he'll eat it, I'll hunt it down for him. I'm hoping I can get an implant for him too. His BG is tanking, belly bothering him, shivering a lot. Poop looks ok for him, but he's tired. The plan is to get an implant and see if that makes a change for him. Otherwise...well..lets not go there.
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Post by Sherry on Sept 12, 2017 8:06:42 GMT -5
That is correct.
Unfortunately, no. Different proteins have differing levels of nutrients, and different parts of that animal also have differing levels of nutrients. So we base the "3 minimum" off of that. For example when I buy, for example, pork. I will try to get different cuts at different times. So one trip may be butt roast, pork button bones. Another will be chops, and if on a real sale, tenderloin.
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Post by Sherry on Sept 12, 2017 8:08:13 GMT -5
I'm not familiar with his health issues. I assume insulinoma and adrenal. What level of pred is he on, and can it be increased?
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Post by hiddenstars826 on Sept 12, 2017 13:22:41 GMT -5
Adrenal and insulinoma. He's on pred and diazoxide, we keep increasing but have been a little conservative with the pred since he has a history of bad stomach ulcers. As of today, we're now up to 0.3ml three times a day of 5mg/ml pred plus his diazoxide. We cannot keep that BG up. His implant should be here tomorrow so as soon as it arrives hopefully we can get it into him. I don't know how long it'll take to kick in, though. Or if he even has that time.
So I need muscle meat as well as organ meat, to count as one protein? I did just get pork chops the other day, which went over remarkably well!! So for pork to be a protein: need pork organ AND muscle? And beef won't count as a protein in the rotation because it's only beef heart that I have?
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Post by hiddenstars826 on Sept 12, 2017 22:00:20 GMT -5
In other news, Tink has not gained any weight since she's gotten here. She's active and crazy. She does eat, I've seen it. There's plenty of leftovers at the next meal, so much so that I've not been offering lunch because there is so much breakfast left over. I've never had a baby before, but I'm surprised because I've always heard about their crazy eating habits. She just turned 4 months old yesterday, and has been here a little over a month. She's holding steady at 660g so at least not losing, but she's been the same since the week after they arrived. Should I be doing something differently? I see everyone else's fat kits and I'm just worried I'm doing something wrong.
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Post by Sherry on Sept 13, 2017 9:21:44 GMT -5
First to answer about proteins. To clarify- we only count proteins by bone in and muscle meats. Not liver/organ. Liver/organ is very similar animal to animal evidently, the the muscle/bone are what count. The reason I try to give different organs from different animals is just for a taste change :-)
With Tink it just sounds like her nature.as long as she is active/eating/peeing/pooping I'd not worry overly
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Post by hiddenstars826 on Sept 13, 2017 10:37:49 GMT -5
Ohhh darn okay time to go back to the drawing board for real! I mean, it makes sense. Probably wishful thinking on my part though!
Tinker FELT heavier, so I'd thought perhaps she was gaining. But this makes me feel a little better. Her mom is pretty tiny too, only about 100 grams more than she is. Sounds like Tink is right around where her sisters are too though. I think she was the smallest of the litter, so I guess that's about right.
Hopefully Peter's implant should be in today. So far he's had a better morning than the past few, he started to crash yesterday morning as I got to work. I guess if he's gonna crash that's the best place to do it. He was in good shape last night when we left for home so hopefully we're getting back on track.
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Post by LindaM on Sept 13, 2017 18:08:29 GMT -5
Think of proteins this way: Each protein is a different animal. So for example, rabbit is a protein, chicken is another, pork is another, duck is another, and so forth.
Some proteins are good only in offering you muscle meats and organs, as their bones are useless since they are too dense and ferrets will not consume them. Beef is an example of that, as beef bones are incredibly dense and ferrets will ignore them instead of eating them.
Other proteins can offer you everything, muscle, organs, and bone-in. For example, chicken which has muscle meat, organs, and several parts which are considered edible bone-in like necks, spines, wings, and some ferrets will also happily eat smashed up thighs.
As a rule, with the minimum 3-4 different proteins, I like to make sure my kids have that difference in not just muscle or organs (like Sherry said mostly for taste differences in that one and I think for when you have one that may have a food sensitivity/allergy to specific proteins), but also in bone-in meals. A mistake I have seen many make in their switches is thinking that it's okay to offer only a single protein for bone-in, and offer the other proteins on the muscle or organ meals. When you look at it like that, you can see how incredibly heavy the menu is with only one protein (and most often it's chicken), as there are so many bone-in meals in the menu. Some ferrets can develop food sensitivities when given a single protein for most of their meals, and sometimes they will just get straight fed-up and bored with it, refusing to eat it. Can you imagine if you had to have only chicken for almost every single meal of every day of your entire life?
So not only do different proteins add some much needed variety (the spice of life after all), but as Sherry already mentioned, they also differ in nutrient levels. They also differ in whether they are lean or fatty animals, for example rabbit is incredibly lean, whereas duck is rather fattening (which makes it a really great menu addition when you need to get some meat on the bones of an underweight ferret though I also keep it on my menu just regularly for variety as the furkids LOVE it).
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Post by hiddenstars826 on Sept 15, 2017 15:48:15 GMT -5
Yes..we eat a lot of chicken but at least I can dress it up and add flavors. They have a heavy chicken menu too right now and I'm sure that is incredibly boring for them!
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Post by LindaM on Sept 15, 2017 17:52:33 GMT -5
Exactly! We can add sauces and actual spices to create variety within the same parameters., unlike the fuzzies. I'm a picky meat eater myself.. so I pretty much just do chicken (boneless breasts 98% of the time), fish, and 93% lean ground beef, and out of that chicken is my go-to meat for probably too many meals (I tell hubby to make himself something else when he gets tired of it, or I just make him different meal). Those are my meat types.. I let the hubby get other kinds like steaks if he wants some for some variety. But in our home the ferrets get all the different types and cuts of meat, LOL. But again.. I can use these in a whole list of different dishes or simply spiced and flavored differently.
I don't recall.. do you have an Asian/Ethnic market near you? Those are great for adding variety, and often cheaper than other grocery stores, and even more so than online raw providers. Quail is a great bone-in option, they also tend to offer whole duck (has several bone-in options and muscle meat), duck wings (wingtips work), duck thighs (might work, needs to be smashed though as it's weight-bearing), duck necks and duck heads (has brains). Frog legs are common, a great bone-in option if yours will take them, some fall in love, others aren't too fond. They also tend to do whole rabbit.. again great bone-in option, but you may have to smash some of the tougher or weight-bearing bones for them to eat it.
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Post by hiddenstars826 on Sept 16, 2017 9:03:43 GMT -5
I don't have any stores immediately around me, but I'm going to Google search some and see if there are some in surrounding areas. With my handy dandy chest freezer I can buy in bulk and store stuff now, so even if it's a bit far I can get enough that it will be worth the trip! Now, to find one.
I'm on a quest for quail eggs too, Peter loved those back when I was able to get some before.
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Post by hiddenstars826 on Sept 16, 2017 12:35:24 GMT -5
Sun am: chicken necks
Sun pm: liver/kidney 50/50
Mon am: pork chops (NOT bone-in)
Mon pm:
Tues am: chicken breast, boneless
Tues pm: chicken wings
Weds am: liver/kidney/heart mix
Weds pm: bone-in chicken breast
Thrs am: turkey chunks
Thrs pm:
Fri am: heart (just by itself, right?)
Fri pm:
Sat am:
Sat pm:
Grinds as lunches as needed
Those blank spots: shoud all be bone-in, but some source other than chicken, correct? My menu is typically pretty chicken heavy so I'd like to get rid of that problem!
So proteins: I have chicken, pork (just chops right now, but will look for more types on sale at our normal store) and turkey (for muscle meat only).
A google search just showed me an asian market a few cities over, and user photos show a picture of pork uterus, so there's hope! I won't drive over there alone as I don't drive in the ciy, but I'll see if Mike will go later this afternoon and we can find more bone-in stuff.
And, an H-Mart about 30 minutes away. Which isn't a terrible distance since there are tons of places in that area Mike will go, so I'll try to convince him we need something at the mall and then just make a liiiittttle bitty detour on the way home!
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Post by hiddenstars826 on Sept 17, 2017 12:59:11 GMT -5
The cat has back slid a bit. Sick last week, lottsssss of vomit. Eating, but not a lot, and not herself or hounding for food. Managed to tempt her to eat and by Weds and Thurs she was seeming more herself thankfully. Picked up more vomit Friday morning but at least she was acting closer to normal. When I brought Peter in for his implant I ended up picking up some of the ID canned food for her, which I was cringing over but she has to eat. So we're doing a can a day split into 4 feedings and mixed with a ton of water each time, she's eating it happily and keeping it down, and I was worried about the potential for constipation but she passed some stool last night without straining and it was not hard and dry. She's back to driving me crazy about meals and scarfing her food, so I think we're in a good spot again. I'm not sure what triggered it, hairball perhaps. But she wants no part of the Stella and Chewys turkey right now, or the chunks of food like she was eating. Back to the drawing board with her.
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