Dexter & Floki - balanced diet

[Deleted]

Hi everyone! 

I have had my two male ferrets for 3 weeks so far, they are 4 and 5 months old. From the very beginning I decided to stick to raw diet but I still find it really difficult to balance, I was hoping that I could get some advice from you. I have a few questions and then if you could have a look at the weekly menu I've created I would be really grateful.

1) The biggest problem I have is to find a variety of meat in my area as my boys refuse to eat red meat. Alongside chicken and turkey I have managed to find rabbit, duck and poussin plus organ and hearts. Is it enough protein? 

2) I'm considering switching to commercial raw food alternated with whole pray but I heard that the quality of mince is very poor? I couldn't find any mince with proper heart content (I live in the UK), but if I give them 80-10-5-5 mince and add a heart meal would that be fine? 

3) Also - what part of rabbit is considered bone-in and what muscle? It all looks like skin and bones to me.

4) If I buy whole skinned rabbit without head but including organs is it already balanced? The same with duck and chicken. 

[Sherry]

Not sure where your menu is posted. But you have listed 4 proteins(poussin is just a young chicken). You mention whole prey, that would be a fifth. How about adding in pork?
Rabbit, mine will eat neck, ribs, spine, front legs(I smash the heavier bone). The back legs they just eat the muscle meat. Given the whole animal(rabbit, duck, chicken) are large I would simply feed according to the basic menu plan holisticferret60.proboards.com/thread/146/meat-bone-organ-weekly-menu
For grinds, yes you could just add an extra heart meal. But if they are already eating whole meats why?

[Deleted]

I am following the guidelines and weekly menu plan but I find it difficult to determine daily dosage. I know that basic rule is 10% of body weight per day but it's also said that kits can eat few times more than that. My kits have unlimited access to food and in some days they can eat 300g of rabbit in one meal, the other time they will barely eat 100g in all day so their diet can't be balanced. If I feed them already balanced diet for now I wouldn't have to be worried about that and I could slowly determine the right amount of food to give them.


Also the meat I buy at the moment (duck especially) is extremely expensive as I can only find it in those sophisticated stores (there is no butcher in my are that sells it) so I'm looking for some alternatives. Dex & Floki refuse to eat any red meat, pork included. I don't know if there is a point of trying to convince them as it's not even their natural source of food, I would rather add some whole pray such as pigeon, quail, mice etc. However at the moment they also don't want to eat anything with fur or feathers on so I could use minced ones for now, I just wasn't sure about the quality.

I'm not sure why I can't upload an image with the menu. 

Edit: I still can't upload the menu. Anyway, I'm pretty sure it's fine as it based on the HF chart and mentioned proteins but that's only in theory, in practice most of this food is wasted and basicly they eat huge amounts of bones which they like and are really reluctant to eat something else (muscle, organ). I tried to soak some liver in egg yolk, will see how that go when I come home. The thing that worries me is that despite the amount of bones eaten, their poops are rather runny (as after organ meal). The only time they were sturdy was after I gave them chicken neck 1.5 meal in a row. I will try to post a poop pics later on. 

[Deleted]

So I still havrn't figured out how to post a picture It looks as added in the template but it's not visible when I create post.

Hopefully you should see it on my Google Drive:
drive.google.com/file/d/0B5j15BSxgcFbak1xSk8ydlZzM3c/view?usp=drivesdk
drive.google.com/file/d/0B5j15BSxgcFbSW9kZXRoUzJPWkk/view?usp=drivesdk

That's how their poops usually look like, this one was after 3 bone-in meals in a row, should I be concerned?

[Deleted]

Got it !!!

[abbeytheferret6]

I am following the guidelines and weekly menu plan but I find it difficult to determine daily dosage. I know that basic rule is 10% of body weight per day but it's also said that kits can eat few times more than that. My kits have unlimited access to food and in some days they can eat 300g of rabbit in one meal, the other time they will barely eat 100g in all day so their diet can't be balanced. If I feed them already balanced diet for now I wouldn't have to be worried about that and I could slowly determine the right amount of food to give them

Read more: holisticferret60.proboards.com/thread/23616/dexter-floki-balanced-diet#ixzz4uSAM0IYy


I do not worry about things like this. I just have plenty of food out. They could have really packed it in one day and are not hungry the next---maybe hunger will kick in that evening. You can drive yourself crazy;) Now if a ferret quit eating and started losing weight, then I would worry. Just make sure they are getting their organs and heart throughout the week.

Also raw fed ferrets poohs are wetter than kibble fed ferrets. Even though you give bone in, there could have been a lot of muscle meat on the bone in. Also some ferrets from what i have read may require more bone-in. 

Organs make looser stools and hearts too. Egg will also loosen stool and may be even yellow. Little seed like things that r light yellow in stool is usually undigested fat. I do not worry about this.I mean if it happened constantly, I would look at how much fat my ferret is eating.


If you give a ferret a particular meat and it causes constant diarrhea(watery stools), i would quit that meat as for instance some ferrets can not eat chicken without this happenng.

[Sherry]

Maybe type the menu out here The poops look okay, especially for a transition. I will say one thing- I know I am dealing with a true ferrent when the first thing done about poop on a carpet is to take a picture of it instead of immediately freaking out and cleaning vigorously lol!

[Deleted]

I haven't even thought of that lol! But yes you're right, it's unbelievable how our priorities change when furry babies step into our lifes :-)

So that's their last week menu: 




However, because their poops looked bad after each organ meal and because I was worried about their diet being unbalanced this week I decided to mince muscle meat, hearts and organs together.. and it's even worse! Their poops are a bit runny and black like on the photos and the smell is horrible! They farted all last evening and the skunky odour was so strong it brought tears to our eyes and we literally couldn't breathe, couldn't air it out neither! I'm hoping that it's only a coincidence, I will give them some mince today again to check it (I'm a self-destructive I guess...). 





To make the mince I used: 

1200g muscle meat (900g turkey boneless thigh and 300g turkey gizzards)
800g heart (400g chicken heart, 400g beef heart)
400g liver (200g chicken liver, 200g lamb liver)
400g kidney, lamb

Only later I found out that gizzards may cause runny poop, I won't be using them in the future. The only thing new for them was beef and lamb, so that might have been another reason. Otherwise, have I messed up the proportions or something? If not, is there anything I can do to improve the poops appearance and the smell? The best way to do so would be to add some minced bone-in instead of muscle meat but I don't have bone grinder. Can adding some minced whole pray help as I can buy those online? Or maybe crushed eggshells? 

I could give hearts separately but mincing it is just very convenient as they can't take it out of the cage and stash it while free roaming, otherwise I keep finding it in the weirdest places. 

[abbeytheferret6]

Those picks look like my ferrets organs poohs. I do not know if other people's ferrets poohs are different on organs.

When you feed meals, make a bone-in meal before and after hearts, organs, and muscles meals. U may be showing that in your plan. They can have boney meals in a row. So the rabbit meal after the heart would include some ribs or spine. Mine can' t eat the bone in  the rabbit legs.