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Post by hiddenstars826 on Oct 6, 2017 9:44:45 GMT -5
Yep, salmon oil works well. But they were pretty wound up, and even oil won't distract them when they just want to wrestle!
I'm working on a Hare Today order now, to get more proteins in. I'm really disappointed, the market we went to last weekend had very poor quality stuff. Sure, some things less expensive, but I went to portion and freeze the pork the other day and it was already rancid. We had gotten duck eggs too, and when I opened the package last night to use one it smelled funky, and I opened the egg and it was rotten. I'm pretty sure the smell is still in my house.
Quail eggs are a hit, though!
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Post by hiddenstars826 on Oct 6, 2017 19:35:41 GMT -5
1. Ferret's name: Dean 2. Ferret's weight: 1107g 3. Ferret's Daily Medications: none 4. Ferret has eaten "X" amount on average per meal: Bites here and there, more or less depending on what is offered 5. Stools on various proteins. Sometimes kind of loose, but not diarrhea. Just not firm. Darker with liver, lighter with muscle/bone in meals. 6. Activity levels: Active! Plays during play time, but if you pick him up he's happy to take a breather
1. Ferret's name: Sam 2. Ferret's weight: 1115g 3. Ferret's Daily Medications: none 4. Ferret has eaten "X" amount on average per meal. Usually a lot. He eats probably a third of what's offered at the time it's offered. Occasionally he takes a few bites and goes back for it later. Quick to go for bones, not so keen on other stuff! 5. Stools on various proteins. Firmer with bone meals, but otherwise pretty normal. He's the most "normal" when it comes to the poops. 6. Activity levels: Active and eager to play always
Menu: lots of chicken for bone-in. boneless turkey and pork, occasionally Sam makes an attempt at pork bones if I give him a chunk with bone in there. Heart/liver/kidney for organs. Quail eggs mixed with organs, last night. Has had some S&C this week.
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Post by hiddenstars826 on Oct 6, 2017 19:37:05 GMT -5
Dean went up slightly, Sam down...What is happening that all of my animals are losing weight? (Except for Fat Cat). Peter though is at 1.15 kg, so I wonder if the scale wasn't tared the other day or something. Peter's BG was 46 today. Not the greatest, but at least over 30 still sooo...
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Post by Sherry on Oct 7, 2017 7:11:07 GMT -5
When getting onto raw, it isn't uncommon to drop some weight first before putting it back on. They are dropping the fat they had from kibble, and will start putting muscle on now. Is there any way you can get me an approx on ounces per meal or day on how much they are eating? For example, weigh the meat when you put it in, then pull out what is left at next mealtime and weigh that. Subtract and what is left is what they ate for that "meal"
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Post by hiddenstars826 on Oct 7, 2017 8:35:57 GMT -5
I can do that, sure. I'll start today with that. Both still LOOK good, it just seems to be a trend in my life except for ME! I'll be finishing up my Hare Today order later on. Anything in particular I should add in? I was going to add rabbit chunks (should I go with boneless on those since they can't eat all of the bone?) And a few different grinds. Those dehydrated sticks. Maybe duck necks for Sam but not totally decided.
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Post by Sherry on Oct 8, 2017 7:15:22 GMT -5
I'd go for the bone in ones. It's not that they generally CAN'T eat most of the rabbit bone- it's that most WON'T eat it because their butts are too darned lazy lol
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Post by hiddenstars826 on Oct 8, 2017 8:49:07 GMT -5
I'd go for the bone in ones. It's not that they generally CAN'T eat most of the rabbit bone- it's that most WON'T eat it because their butts are too darned lazy lol Ahhh! Ok that makes sense. I know Monday has had whole rabbit before, and I am 99% positive Tink has also had an opportunity to work on a whole one with her brothers and sisters. I have a feeling Sammy will happily try the bones. He does pretty well with chicken thigh bones, only leaves the middle part of it.
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Post by hiddenstars826 on Oct 8, 2017 21:42:21 GMT -5
We went grocery shopping this afternoon and stocked up at bit for the weasels. I got: a 2-pack of Cornish Hens, lots of pork sirloin, turkey tenderloin, and chicken wings (full ones). I placed a Hare Today order tonight, hopefully will ship Tuesday: 5lbs Turkey necks, chicken necks, duck necks (figure Sammy can attempt them), rabbit pieces, and quail. Even though I just realized the quail says "semi-boneless". Not sure what that means, I guess we'll see. Oops. I have a few grinds coming too, and pork hearts. And those dehydrated sticks. If these guys don't like those, I'll give them my MIL's dogs.
I'm wondering if a large part of the cat's problem is over eating. But I don't know how that can be the case all of the time. She had some rabbit for dinner, didn't eat much but it came back up. Again, on my carpet, not the tile floor. We'll give it another week or two and see how it goes, and I HATE to do it, but I may end up dumping her back on her Acana. I can't take the constant puking, and it's a waste of food! I've got most of her meals portioned out for the week other than organs, and we're waiting for the Hare Today stuff to finish it off. Pork, rabbit, and the beef grind will be in her rotation as well. Should I go to one protein and see how she does? Or give her a rotation like the smaller carnivores? Thankfully my organs are all pork or beef so I don't have to get her separate stuff for those too.
Prospective menu for the week for the younger boys and girls: Sun am: chicken wings Sun pm: chicken ribs (carcass) for the girls, 5.4 oz. Legs for the boys, 6 oz (I know, huge portions. I actually wonder if the legs were chicken legs, they were drumsticks I think, but looked huge. If they leave a lot, oh well, it is what it is). Mon am: pork (no bone) Mon pm: heart/liver Tues am: heart/liver/kidney Tues pm: heart alone Weds am: chicken wing Weds pm: rabbit leg Thurs am: turkey (no bone) Thurs pm: rabbit rib pieces/spine Fri am: chicken wing Fri pm: Sat am: Sat pm: Hopefully the HT order will be here so I can snag it and portion for the Friday evening meals. Now that I've done it and know what to expect, I wish I'd picked up more rabbit at the store last week. I wonder if I can get there this weekend, or Mike has next week off so I may try to send him (hahaha like that'll work), to a different Asian market (the one that's only a few towns over). I'm NOT impressed with the quality we got last week at the market we went to, so I want to avoid that one if possible.
Okay, so. I have beef tongue. Muscle, right? And am I correct that its high in taurine? Where would I plop a cornish hen in the menu? They look decent sized. Would that be their whole day or just one meal? Would I just give the whole thing to each pair? I've got the boys and the cat's boneless stuff portioned into 3oz baggies per meal, and the bone-in rabbit is just about the same weight. Wings around 3-4 oz average. The girls, I portioned their meals at about 1.5 oz per meal, rabbit bone-in about the same (I gave them front legs and I think a rib section in their weekly baggie). They have some wings, but those are about 3-4 oz in size. I'm prepared to divide those and their menu may be chicken wings all day, on those days. Or maybe I'll give the extras to the boys, who knows.
Peter's menu has expanded again. Chicken S&C is the current favorite, but I've been rotating that with turkey or duck or combining some/all. We added goose grind back in this morning, he didn't eat a ton of it but he ate it readily. He's been chowing his NV boost treats throughout the day nicely so I don't worry quite as much about him between his meals.
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Post by Sherry on Oct 9, 2017 8:25:47 GMT -5
First kitty. I did have two who could not tolerate raw. Within 20 minutes it all came back up again. Didn't matter the protein. They would do well for about 3 weeks, then the vomiting would start. Ultimately I wound up putting them on a high quality canned. Don't put her back on kibble. Even a mid grade canned would be better due to the drastically increased hydration. With no grinds, you want to have 3 meals, one liver/organ alone. One heart alone. One 1/2 heart 1/2 liver/organ mix. And serious tip? Separate those 3 meals by at least one bone in between each of them lol. Else you'll have them pooping through the eye of a needle at 50 paces! Another tip? Mix your proteins up during the week. I know if mine get the same thing 3 meals in a row they pretty much go on strike lol. They really hate my "tough love" bit if they slack off a protein or bone in- that is all they get til they start eating it again! Beef tongue(muscle) is really high in taurine, and can actually be used as a partial substitute for heart. Cornish hen(usually about a pound), I would cut in quarters and try with that. One day boys get the wing quarter, girls the leg. Next time switch so they both get some of each. Not a thing wrong with giving one thing for the entire day. Some here only feed once a day, and put in enough to last the day.
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Post by hiddenstars826 on Oct 9, 2017 12:31:11 GMT -5
Peter had 2nd breakfast this morning, AND 2nd lunch just now. He spent most of yesterday in his house (except for coming out to poop on my bedroom floor...thanks dude, appreciate that..) but when i went to check on him and offer food he was alert and ate readily (and a LOT, he ate almost 1/4 cup (measured dry) of his chicken last night.
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Post by hiddenstars826 on Oct 9, 2017 22:45:12 GMT -5
First kitty. I did have two who could not tolerate raw. Within 20 minutes it all came back up again. Didn't matter the protein. They would do well for about 3 weeks, then the vomiting would start. Ultimately I wound up putting them on a high quality canned. Don't put her back on kibble. Even a mid grade canned would be better due to the drastically increased hydration. I'm going to try smaller portions and see how she does as well as the menu change. I only offered her about 1/2 an ounce tonight and she's just picked at it. Tonight is rabbit back (not much, if any, bone) and she's not too thrilled by it. I may end up needing salmon oil to convince her. What type of canned do you use, just out of curiosity? So far, the Orijen and then the Acana Meadowlands was the only things she's really EVER done well with. She was on Orijen for maybe 2.5 years with some vomiting but not a ton, then wasn't able to tolerate the new formulation and we switched to Acana, which she'd been on for about 3 months before the transition to raw. I think she only actually ever vomited once or twice on the Acana. She's REALLY good about her water intake, she drinks less now because it's in her food but ever since I brought her home 4 years ago, she's always drank 1/2-3/4 a bowl of water a day. Made me nervous at first, how many cats do you see drinking so much? But she's ALWAYS been like that. Her weight was almost ideal, too :-( I don't know. Okay, I'm back to being positive. This new idea is gonna work. LOL. NOTED!!! Consider it changed. I SLEEP next to these psychos. I don't need poop on my head in the middle of the night. Omg. Mike would have us all sleeping in the barn! Yes, chicken is pretty much over, for them. I get it, I can't blame them. But how tough love can I do, with Tinker? How long is it safe to leave stuff out? Monday tends to prefer her stuff "aged" I've noticed. I'm not feeding grinds to them, so it'd be chunks or larger. On average, my house is around 65-70 degrees right now as the ACs are still running. A lot of times Monday, and occasionally the boys, only eat a few bites and then stash the rest. Especially since everyone's slowed down on their food consumption. Maybe I'll do this at least with the boys if it's okay to leave out long enough. Dinner tonight was rabbit. Boys got ribs/upper spine and the neck smashed up and cut into a couple of pieces, total weight: 3.6 oz Girls got a front leg smashed and cut into 3 pieces, total weight 1.5 oz Bananey got a tiny amount from the back without bone, total weight about 0.5 oz. I figured if she eats, she can get more. She's picking at it slowly, a bite or two at a time. Especially with her, how long can I leave it out? If it's safe to let her pick at, then I don't mind doing it that way. She's coming back to the bowl every 30 min or so, in between watching Mouse TV and being "on alert" for a chance to go catch one (read: wake me up by sounding her alarm meow with it next to my bed at 3am). The tiny carnivores dug into it happily. Tink hesitated a bit, but I did notice her eat a bit of it. Upon later check, there's only about 1.5 segments left of the leg and I did see some bone shards on the floor of the cage. The boys, who have only ever eaten ground rabbit sparingly (and acted as if they were being forced!), were in that bowl so quickly they were tripping over each other! They ate some, I did see some stashed in a corner, and some still in the bowl. But they were crunch crunch crunching away happily. I am SO proud of those boys. They just stuffed their faces into their food without question, so quickly, even though they'd never been offered rabbit like that before and it's been a long while since we've had the ground rabbit. I'm eager to see how they've done with the bones. Oh! Just realized they've been here 5 months as of Friday! Transitioning in earnest started the beginning of July with them, so...not too bad for only 3 months in, huh? Seeing how easy it has been for them (I thought it was hard at times, but looking back it really hasn't been) I really wish I'd known back then what I know now and could have done this with Wendy and Peter. I mean, I know at least they ended up on raw but still. Even a year ago, I wish I'd gotten Peter going better with slivers and pieces. If I can get him to a point where I'm a bit more confident about his eating well, maybe I'll add a bit of tiny slivers in and see what happens. He doesn't eat a lot of the goose grind. I wonder why. Texture, maybe? He likes his soup, and sloshy S&C, but the Hare Today grinds seem to make him less eager to dig in. He's always liked stuff a little "dryer", too, back when he was younger. I'll have to think on this one a bit. Okay, off to go extract Petey from his basket and put him to bed. Poor guy, just wants to stay in his basket tonight and I keep disturbing him. I just don't feel comfortable letting him stay out roaming through the night, if one of us has to get up to the bathroom or something. He blends in well enough with our tan floors, if you don't have your glasses on. I think we may rearrange some things and move the other guys' cage into the other room, and set up a play pen for Peter in the bedroom instead. I have mixed feelings right now about taking the ramp(s) away from him, I think it's good for him to be able to do them but he deserves to not have to, and I do worry about him falling off the shelf in the cage and getting hurt. And I don't like him going down the outside ramp on his own since he slides off half of the time. But, he wouldn't do the ramps to go in and out so much if he didn't want to, right? He voluntarily comes and goes from his house when we're home. Most of the time he's in the living room in one of his billion beds and spends his day there, but he does occasionally go back and forth. He will come out of his cage and potty on his potty pad out here in the kitchen, then back into the bedroom and up into his bed in his cage. Awfully long way to travel just to poop (probably why he just did it on my floor yesterday afternoon, grrr), but that's how Peter is! I don't know, but if he had a playpen set up for night times I could just plop his basket into the pen and not have to disturb him on nights like this. Hm.
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Post by Sherry on Oct 10, 2017 10:12:46 GMT -5
You can leave chunks out for 12-24 hrs no problem my cats for the most part have to clean their dishes of their grinds before I am willing to fill them again. I will at times find them cleaning the last bit out of the dishes close to their next feeding time. Like the ferrets they get fed twice a day. As for cats drinking, I know it may seem a lot, but they are physically incapable of drinking enough to make up for a dry diet. They are built to get most, if not all, liquid from their diet. Tough love. For a ferret with insulinoma you really can't. But otherwise, they get the same meal repeated for up to 3 days.
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Post by hiddenstars826 on Oct 10, 2017 19:13:17 GMT -5
I cannot find any traces of rabbit or the pork that was breakfast, for the girls OR boys. The only thing was a few bone pieces from the rabbit in the girls' house, but nothing substantial. The cat, well, her rabbit was puked up on my kitchen floor this morning when I woke up. Pork stayed down from breakfast it appears. The dumb dumb DID, however, find her way into Peter's house while we were at work and helped herself to his leftover cookies. And then puked it all up in the kitchen. She busted herself. Petey's having a rough day, very quiet and ouchy today. He hasn't eaten as much as normal at all. I'm trying not to worry yet, and hoping we're catching whatever it is early enough to turn it around.
If chunks are okay for that long, then fantastic. I may have to increase everyone slightly, and at least this way maybe the cat can just graze and that can help.
I'll plan for progress reports tomorrow or Thurs am. Mondays and Tuesdays I have a weird work schedule that often rotates and Sundays are always a disaster of some sort playing "catch up and pre-Monday blues".
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Post by Sherry on Oct 11, 2017 9:15:58 GMT -5
With kitty evidently raw may still be up in the air. For now take her one day at a time. Out of curiosity, for example you said she tossed the rabbit- will she do that each and every time with rabbit? Or is there no rhyme or reason to it? Excellent for the other fuzz! It does sound like you may need to increase amounts for them With Peter, a day at a time. Fingers crossed he comes roaring back
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Post by hiddenstars826 on Oct 11, 2017 9:40:15 GMT -5
She's not had much rabbit, but the couple of times she has so far it's come back up. So far, and i'll have to go through here again to double check, but pork seems to so far be the only thing that has stayed down. I have a feeling even that has come up though, just maybe not in the immediate past.
The youngsters are scarfing their food. We'll see what happens today, though, I have chicken wings (whole wings) that are going in before I leave for work. They may stick their noses up at that yet haha.
This morning so far so good for Peter. My alarm went off around when he must have gone down to potty, because I woke up to see him in the corner of his cage next to my nightstand sniffing around for cookies. I forgot to give him more last night after the cat had gone scavenging. So, because I wasn't ready to get out of bed but he was hungry, we spent 5 minutes with me handing over cookies and him chowing down until he'd had enough. He's allowed to be spoiled, right? hehehe He ate 90% of his chicken for breakfast this morning, which HE was looking for. I usually wait about 10 minutes after meds because he won't eat directly after, and he likes the food nice and warm. So I was in the bathroom throwing laundry in and he came in looking for me and walked back out to the kitchen sniffing the air. Fine, fine, let me get your food!
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