Momo & Appa Transition

[Gg]

Okay! We're a month into this transition and I'm still kind of confused on bone-in meals when making a soupie.
I always thought that when blending bone in quail or chicken legs that that's enough bone for them. I noticed the poops getting runny so I added in eggshell but they're still on and off runny.
My Q on this
(1)Is there ever a streak of healthy poops or will it be a constant shift between solid and runny?

My meal plan is the frankenprey diet but blended.
(2)If I give them their even percentage of organ, meat, heart, ect..how do I go about making it a complete meal for each day?

What I've been doing is, this morning for instance, blending quail, semi-boneless, with heart, liver and gizzard...add water and that makes about 5 cups. I give them that until the bag runs out which usually covers a day and a half.
I put heart chunks in the soupie almost everytime because I've heard that the extra taurine gets pushed out so that didn't sound harmful...please correct me if I'm wrong. Also, they don't get liver in every meal. That's maybe 3 times a week. The heart in soup lately gets pushed to the side and they slurp up the rest. They used to love them but perhaps I'm getting them sick of it? I try to add in mixed proteins yet they still dont like red meats so I'll mix the proteins up between duck/quail/turkey/chk and add just a meatball size of minced lamb. They dont seem to notice I do, however, notice that they are more tired. I know it's colder out so they'll tend to sleep more but it takes them 10 minutes to get going with kind of running around, then they'll stop to stretch and yawn, then back to play time! Is this normal or a side effect of them not getting enough fat for energy?
(3) Am I missing a vital ingredient?

(4/5)Also, if I pull out an organ such as liver from the freezer, do I have to wait until it's defrosted all the way or can I blend it while it's semi frozen?
How long do hearts/gzzard/liver last in the fridge?

Thanks ahead of time for all of the help!

[pegleg]

1) In a way it can be a constant shift. My two boys are fully transitioned, but after a day of offal, or an egg, their poops might be a little loose. But overall, their poops stay solid. Also, I like bone meal powder better than ground egg shell. You can get it on amazon. However, feeding your diet in liquid form, so always soupies, will likely cause runny poops. I know my girl who just started her transition has runny poops because she's on almost full soup.

2) All soup forever isn't an ideal frakenprey diet. I balance over the week, not day by day. We have a great guide on here of how you should set up your menu for frakenprey, but as I have it my boys only get full meal of offal, one full meal of heart, then one meal that is half offal and half heart each week. Otherwise they eat bone in and muscle meal. In fact adding water could be why you're getting runny poops. I don't feed soup as soup, I feed it as oatmeal like consistency.

3) To me it looks like you have everything, but I could be missing something. Although do think it'd be better if you balanced over the week. If you feed them only soup, you need to brush their teeth. It's chewing bone that keeps teeth healthy.

4) You can blend it completely frozen if you like. Makes no difference.

5) Pretty much forever. I've fed meat that has been in someone's freezer for over a year. Even freezerburned meat is fine.

[LindaM]

When first starting a switch, you will get what are known as Detox Poops. This is one of the scariest plunges for a ferret owner new to raw. Simply because these poops will be all over the place when it comes to consistency and even color. This stage of their poops being weird like that can usually last for around 6 weeks.

But it remains very important to keep an eye on the poops, because with ferrets the poops just tell us SO much. Really runny poops can mean not enough bone in the overall diet. Hard, chalky poops can indicate too much bone. Tiny, pencil-like poops could mean a blockage. Or bubbly poop can be a bacterial infection. With ferrets, poop is life LOL. And you will come to learn what all the poops mean and what to look out for in time, even with the minor changes in them depending on what is fed. Organ and heart meals will usually lead to runnier, tar-like poops which is why it is often followed-up by a bone-in meal to firm them again.

Why do you want to do the Frankenprey diet blended? Why not start moving to slivers and onward if they are happily eating the soup or minced already? Soups and grinds have no benefit at all for their teeth. Plaque and tartar build up same as with kibble and unless you brush it can cost them their teethsies.

There is still such a thing as too much heart.. even though excess Taurine gets excreted through their urine. Too much heart can upset the balance of the overall diet and it CAN lead to awfully runny poops.

Personally, I feel that your menu will be better balanced and they will do better if you start following the proper Frankenprey menu. When you are doing it as soups and grinds, it still needs to be balanced by the recipe on here, which includes liver in each amount of soup made, just in ratio to the meat. So your diet is likely not fully balanced.

You can blend frozen, as long as your blender is happy. Gizzards/Giblets are best not blended as they go kinda rubber and can harm the blender.

In the freezer (deep/chest freezer works best) meat can keep well for a whole year.

[Gg]

Ah, sounds like the quantity of heart and my meal plan is the problem! Although they don’t eat the heart chunks, I do blend heart into the soups! Messy puppy pads makes sense now. I will definitely start adding in all of the ingredients!
How do you feel about feeding them animal fat?
Is bone meal powder more nutritional than eggshell?
We were at runny soups in the beginning but now I use less water and mix up different protein slivers to the soup so it does have a thicker consistency, similar to oatmeal.
But even with slivers, they get around them. I even thought that the chicken I got from the market was spoiled but it didn’t smell peculiar.. They used to like the multiple slivers but now they don’t seem as excited. They will eat chicken wings..it's a hit or miss. For sure hit if there's yolk on top. Since it's been a month, I thought we’d be on bigger bones by now.. yet they attack every toy they have! Even rug corners.
I tried moving them up to minced meats and they weren’t having it so I started blending in the minced lamb. Sorry for that confusion I can see how that could be read as they were already eating minced meats! Also I was wondering about organs in the fridge, not freezer. But I already answered that question by sniffing the bag haha.
I haven’t tried putting yolk or salmon oil on minced meat just yet but I figured that if they were already accepting wings then we could skip that stage entirely since they repeatedly turned down mince.
I do brush their teeth. I use a soft baby toothbrush and mix salmon oil with eggshell. I read that natural toothpaste recipe on this forum somewhere… Does that sound right?
I sound like I give them salmon oil everyday but I promise it’s a small amount each time!
Detox poops have me looking at poop charts on google every day! I feel like a creep looking to see who’s pooping what when one of the squirrels are in the box!

[LindaM]

If you are making a raw soup, use the recipe from the forum, but you can replace the type of meat used, eg. instead of chicken use rabbit. That's perfectly fine to do, so long as the ratio remains balanced.

Fat is tricky, it works the same for them as for humans. Fat is a source of energy, especially for our little fuzzies. Fattier cuts of meat tend to be better than lean cuts, eg. chicken thigh vs chicken breast. But you cannot feed them huge chunks of just fat, this will make them sick, just the same as it would be unhealthy for us.

So.. bones are better than bone meal and bone meal is better than eggshells. Eggshell powder lack the micronutrients found in bone meal, thus bone meal is the better choice. I always keep a jar of bone meal powder around, just in case of an emergency where I might need it. Eggshells can be used in a pinch if you don't have any. But both bone meal powder and eggshell powder are always only temporary measures to be used, not permanent.

Oh, my mistake, sorry. I don't keep meats for more than 4 days in the fridge, that's the maximum.

Is the new meat you're trying to give a different protein perhaps? Sometimes some fuzzies will go all the way to the bone-in stage, but with a new protein have to start at an earlier stage like slivers or soups. It's not uncommon for them to backtrack on new and unknown proteins.

That is correct for brushing teeth, yes. Personally, I prefer using bone meal powder instead though whenever I might need to with any of mine, not so much an issue here as mine eat their bones.

As long as you keep to the 1tsp per ferret, per week of oil limit, you're fine. Just keep in mind, too much oil can also cause runny poops. Egg also causes freaky poops, so just keep that in mind when checking poops after they've had any eggs. You know the weekly egg limit, correct?

Haha, you're not a creep, you are a ferrent. It is our job to look at and often dissect a poop to see what's going on. You're gonna be just fine.

[pegleg]

Haha if you'd like you can even post a picture of the poop here for us to look at~ And I usually follow the rule if it smells fine, feed it. Never had a problem with it.

I keep a jar of bone meal and one of taurine powder at home at all times. You can find both on Amazon. But, like Linda said, it's not as good as actual bone and I really prefer to feed bone in. Bone meal is added if I decide to make a homemade grind, or in the case of my newest ferret she's on the soupie stage, so she gets it.

[Gg]

Hmm I noticed the lamb soup was pretty oily and my younger fert doesn’t seem to be a fan. It did seem fatty! I’ll have to start getting the meat cuts with fat on it! P: mmm
Okay, Is the NOW bone meal a good brand?
Yes, the beef grinds were new, I never blended it in so that was my bad Had a good dinner though.
The lamb has been blended into the soup which they’re slowly liking. It’ll be interesting to see how they’ll take to slivers
I’m going to try chicken wing tips today again. They really dig quail too but it’s out of my budget since we’ll be visiting the vet again soon. Are there other smaller bones I can get them to strengthen their jaws on that you'd recommend? I tried smashing chicken leg into smaller pieces but they didn’t know what to do with it still.
That’s great your fuzzier eat bone in! I can’t wait to see mine chomping on the solid food!


okay this is happening and i recorded the noise. I just checked his blood glucose levels and he's at 101! That's a first. I've never seen him go above 47/50 range. I don't have it adjusted to match the vets reader, it's a One touch Verio model. In order to check his levels I gave him salmon oil on his belly to distract him, just a few drops, and he started licking so I'm thinking he's getting blocked from hair still. Then after he started licking the oil off, he started at it with this noise again! He was fine all night after the egg yolk..
I gave him pumpkin mixed with water, very very small amount.
He did just get his des implant also. Throwing out any information that might go in hand with what I'm seeing..
15 mins later, being now, he's eating a protien meal...

[LindaM]

Personally, I use KAL Bone Meal, but the NOW should be okay I believe.
Also, as you get to work with more and more types of meats, you'll notice the difference in textures, some meats seem to just have a fatty texture to them. It's most noticeable when working with FDR or grinds usually. Beef, Venison and Lamb all always feel oily on my fingers afterwards.

Something to keep in mind on beef during a switch, beef has a very strong smell and taste. So it can take some fuzzies more work to get used to it, versus a mild meat like chicken. Which is why chicken is commonly used to start the raw switch. My lot will eat beef if they must, but to this day they still have it as their least liked protein.

Quail is lovely, especially for bone-in, they get the hang of it very fast. Where do you get quail? It may be cheaper if you get it at a Asian/Ethnic store, but yes, it can be a bit pricey.

Hmmm.. small bones.. well you could take the plunge and try some frog legs, haha. Some fuzzies LOVE these instantly, others are reserved about it and some just hate it, period. Whole Prey items like mice and rats have small bones too.

Chicken wings work well for introduction to bones.. as do Cornish Game Hens.. the entire bird. But since those are technically still juvenile chickens and not adults, your menu shouldn't rely heavily on them. They are great as a bone start though.

You can also offer gizzards to strengthen their jaws for bone. These are very chewy muscle meats.

My kids make those noises sometimes, usually a stray hair or fiber stuck in the nose or throat for them. If your ferrets are shedding, it's winter here for us, so they all shed to bring in their winter coats.. and my cat was shedding too. So my bunch got extra raw egg in the week for a while there. Usual limit for raw egg is 1 egg per ferret, per week. But in the shedding season you can do double. The lecithin in the egg yolk helps to break apart the fats binding the hair which could cause issues, and allows the ferret to pass them then.

As for the reader, I really recommend taking it to your vet and having the vet calibrate it to theirs for you. It works much easier if you can get properly calibrated readings, otherwise mistakes may occur. Which is not a risk I would like to take with a sick ferret.

I commented about the pumpkin in the other thread, and I'll let those more medically inclined than me comment on it on there too.

[Gg]

Yes the blender got a double cleaning after the lamb! Oily for sure.
I’ll keep at the red meats. How long did it take your company to get the hang of a full switch?
I get the quail from a market here in town. It’s a mom and pop shop and they’re the only other place I’ve found that sells quail here aside from the butcher I go to across town. The butcher charges around 29 for a small package and the mom and pop shop is about 20 for a pack of 4. I tried getting heart at the asian market before and they were old so I was afraid to go again but I’ll check for quail there.
I do have pinkies in the freezer! I’ll try that tonight. I know they don’t have enough nutrients as the adults do so they’ll get their soup with the pinky and see how that goes.
I have plentiful gizzard too! I’m assuming if I give gizzard chunks today, then no gizzard in their soup recipe?

I saw that Thank you again for replying with godspeed. It’s helping me not be a headless chicken. I know pumpkin is one of those risks that I don’t feel comfortable taking at times. If I give them more than the suggested amount of egg yolk during shedding season, say 3 yolks per ferret, what would happen? Just runny poops? I guess I could spilt the egg yolk too.. Extend it by day a little and use the remainder for myself

[LindaM]

Age of the ferrets can play a big role in how fast they switch. Loki was well past the imprinting stage, so about 2-3 months for him to go all the way, if I recall correctly. I switched him and Athena together, she was younger and switched much faster. I started them on soup and went through each stage. Ares and Apollo I switched immediately, they got put on raw the moment they entered our house at 7 months old. They went straight to slivers and onwards with rapid succession.

DOLLARS!? Holy moly cow... I get quail from the Asian store, I pay $12-15 or so for 6 jumbo quails. Check the frozen sections, they're usually kept there by the chickens and duck. Could've just been a bad package of hearts.. the ethnic stores still have to conform to FDA rules of being human-grade and all health protocols followed as stated by the department of health. But yeah.. it can be a bit odd sometimes, especially in the start. It was that way for me, but I became so used to it, I even buy some snacks from the Asian store now, like Jagabee potato chips and litchi ice cream while I pick up stuff for the ferrets.

Pinkies are good for snacks/treats. As for the gizzards, I've never used gizzards in soup in the first place myself. I assume you are using the gizzards as the muscle meat? Are you following this soup recipe?
holisticferretforum.com/natural-diet/raw-diet-the-meat-of-the-site/raw-soup-recipe/

You're very welcome hon. Hmm, you could try 3 yolks, I would not do any more than that though. And you're going to have to keep a close eye on the poops. Too much egg will lead to very, very nasty poops. Too much of anything is never a good thing. You can definitely split the servings, feed half today.. feed the rest tomorrow for example. Just place it in a tupperware container in the fridge to keep.

[Gg]

Yeah!! The butcher even has another option for quail thats around 30$!
Yes I'm following that recipe.. So0o0o if I give him a pinky as a snack, I continue to follow the normal soup recipe, correct? But if I give them things such as gizzard chunks for dinner, should I then also keep the gizzard in the soup recipe for that dinner meal as well? Or just throw in the gizzard slivers into the soup mix! ..?
I love the asian store for myself! Their heart just looked a little questionable. Do hearts usually look brown? Their whole shelf of hearts looked kind of old and brown. The ones from the butcher have more of a pink/red tinge to it.

We also just got back from the vet and egg yolk was on the no-no list for the vet but then she recommended ferretlax.. She's actually against all raw foods I guess and youre definitely right on them being trained by kibble companies. I questioned where she's reading this salmonella nonsense for ferrets and she didn't really answer me. I wrote a response of how that went on the other thread we've been talking on.

[Gg]

Another question.. I've been using his menu as the frankenprey but also the raw soup mix. So for instance, if it's bone in meal, I'll blend up chicken wings or legs, add in the heart, liver and shell. Then muscle, same recipe only instead of bone in, I replace with muscle meat.
That's usually what they've been getting. Also slivers of whichever meats their getting that day. But the mix if for that specific day only.

[LindaM]

You can't really be doing both.. pick if you want to do a Frankenprey menu, or the soup (it's already based off the FP/WP diet). Personally, I'd work on the soup to get them to slivers, to chunks, to bone-in. And then you do the Frankenprey menu properly hon. You are going to need to start moving on from the soup at some time anyway. Focus on the soup for now, that recipe is balanced, thus the soup counts as an alternative meal, it is fully balanced. Just the same way using whole prey would have been.

Adding eggshell or bone meal powder when using bones is going to lead to constipation in your ferrets. Stick to the soup recipe, you can use different proteins if you like, eg. instead of chicken thighs, use rabbit. The egg shell or bone meal powder going into the soup is taking the place of actual bones because it is a soup, it's not meant to be added on top of boned meats.

Remind me what your fuzzies are willing to eat without issues at this stage? Then we can work from there on.

[Gg]

Oh no, thank you for clearing that up! *_*' I totally misunderstood that! Okay, makes sense.
So when you say rabbit, you mean a rabbit muscle meat and I continue to only use muscle meat with their 1-2 chk hearts, 1/2 liver and 1/2 tsp of shell?
They got chicken wing tips tonight. I put a little soup on it and it worked.
They take to that and some quail pieces. Other than that, nothing! Aside from egg yolk, that is.
I've been waiting for a mentor so I'm really glad your cleared up that mistake of mine!

[LindaM]

Yes, just muscle meat in with the hearts, liver and bone meal/eggshell. And while we are talking about, this is a tidbit of info you can save in case you ever need it. If you ever run out of bone-in meat, and need to use a bone meal or eggshell powder, it's 1/2 - 3/4 tsp of powder per 10oz of meat. You'll also be doing some of the bone meal or eggshell when starting to do slivers and the like, until they can get to eating the actual bones.

You can always progress then without a mentor. You are more than welcome to do an unofficial switch until you can get a mentor, it allows us to pop in and give advice if you need it, and also to let your babies progress in their switch while you wait on a mentor.

So are they eating the bones in the quail and chicken wing tips? Or just munching the meat off of them?