Introducing myself (:

[izaya]

Hi everyone !

I adopted my first ferret back in October, they quickly became one of my favorite pets to own. His name was Mordecai and he is the ferret in my profile picture. Sadly on the 7th of January I rushed into emergency surgery after noticing he couldn't pee anymore and was dripping blood from his urethra. He had a lot of bladder stones and blood cloth in his bladder. Sadly my baby boy did not make it through the surgery and died at the very last step of it. He was just under a year old. I had never felt such sadness before, I couldn't stop crying and I still haven't slept since it happened.

I decided earlier today to go see if maybe I could fall in love with an other ferret to try and get through it. Here I am, back home with not one but two ferrets, Zed and Dante, both males, 5 months old. Losing Mordecai so early traumatised me and even tho his issue was mostly just genetics, I know diet play a huge role with health especially for bladder stones. Long story short, I was those two new ferrets to be raw fed.

Just like Mordecai, they are currently on Origen cats and kittens dry food. I want to start transitioning to raw as soon as I figure it all out. I really hope to learn a ton on this forum !

[mermaidsirena]

Welcome, Izaya! I am so sorry about your loss. They grab your heart straight away and it is so painful to lose them. Congratulations on your two new fuzzies to keep your heart full. I have been at this transition to raw journey for a few months and I can say the first few weeks were a struggle to understand it all but at this point I feel some control and less worry about feeding raw. My boys are still working on eating different size chunks but they were both on kibble we I got them.

Welcome!

[LindaM]

Hi there Izaya! Welcome to the forum, we're so glad you decided to join us. I also wish to pass along my deepest sympathies to you about Mordecai. He looks like he was a beautiful lad, may he dook in peace and play with the other fuzzies beyond the Rainbow Bridge now.

Kibble, due to specific and quite common ingredients such as peas and sweet potatoes (high in oxalates), can most certainly lead to bladder stones. And sometimes it's hard to figure out just how much of those go into certain kibbles. You are taking the much safer and healthier route for your new babies by going with raw. And we will help you with it in any way that we can!

If you haven't yet, I suggest starting off with this link:
holisticferret60.proboards.com/thread/17480/intro-raw-newbies-read

[Sherry]

Hi and welcome So sorry to hear about the loss of your little lad. And glad you were able to open your heart and home again.
Please feel free to post, ask questions, and join the conversations

[unclejoe]

Welcome to the group I’m sorry for your loss I don’t feed orijen but if it has peas chick peas sweet potatoes Those are.hi in oxalates that can cause stones in ferretSAfter looking it up I see it contains chickpeas and whole green peas yes you’re definitely best to get off of that

[abbeytheferret6]

Hi Glad that have you joined us here on the forum
I am sorry about your little ferret. It is shame what they put in ferret food. It would seem that these companies would know better than to put high veggie matter content in ferret food--knowing that these animals are carnivorous---but they are out to make a buck with cheap content. I do a mix of whole prey (rats,mice, quail) and frankenprey.

The link sent to you is great reading.

[izaya]

Thanks everyone for the warm welcome ! I can't wait to learn more about raw diets. I'm hoping that I won't ever loose a ferret as young as Mordecai ever again, im sure raw is going to help with that a lot.