Hm.. about dirty whiskers

[izaya]

Hi! I'm kind of a bacteria freak and i have started transitioning my 3 ferrets to raw, they're on the soup right now and it's going hella good. However. I feed them while holding them in one hand and spoon feeding them with the other to avoid them stepping in it.. but still their whiskers become super soaked in the mixture and.. Yeah I mean it's raw meat.. I don't want that on them ?

Either re assure me there's no health issue or tell me how to avoid them getting so dirty?

I'm sorry for being difficult ;_; so far i have towel washed their face after every meal..

[Poseidon]

Hiya, considering their not so domesticated cousins eat whole prey bigger than themselves, they stick their whole head in and get covered in it and they always never have an issue. And same with feeding raw and whole prey to ferrets, if it gets on them it won't harm them, and they'll likely lick it off themselves at some point sooner or later.

[Heather]

LOL....I never consider it an issue. No health issue?, I suppose there is one but certainly not to them (wait until you find them chowing down on a chicken leg in the litter box), there is a moderate one to you. I've never had an issue and I raised 2 children and now a couple of grandkids who have no problems kissing those tickly whiskers. My daughter used to take a wash cloth to their faces and my son just to gross her out would give them a full kiss on their icky faces. Neither got sick from it. I would love to post a couple of meeper (tiny kits) pics that show the wee meepers standing in their food up to their little bellies slurping up their soupy. After they've eaten their fill they toddle their way off to bed and mom cleans them up. It is what they are. The idea is to keep you healthy and comfortable handling them. If washing their faces makes you more comfortable they will tolerate it
ciao

[unclejoe]

They will keep themselves clean. I would put their dinner in a bowl and let them tuck in. That way you won't get any on you, and it's more natural for them.

[Sherry]

You can also provide a small towel for them to wipe their faces on directly after eating so they don't wipe them on you or the furniture

[unclejoe]

Jan 28, 2018 10:52:28 GMT -5 Sherry said:

You can also provide a small towel for them to wipe their faces on directly after eating so they don't wipe them on you or the furniture

Actually we put their food bowls on a Matt so they can wipe their faces when they’re done

[olenka]

Hi Izaya! Try to spoon feed them and then set them free (no face wiping) You will see that they rush to wipe up their whiskers against some kind of fabric (a couch, a rug, etc) My blaze girl was wiping her whiskers against my sweater while I was spoon-feeding her When I let her go, she was rushing to a rice box to take a "dry bath". The boys were wiping up their moses against their hammock. So, we pup an old tee shirt in their cage. They used it as a "towel".

Now I am at the last stage of switch to raw feeding. My fuzz butts eat meat off the bone. They drug those wings all over the cage, and they started to hide 'snacks' around the house. Yours will do it soon:) It is inevitable. Do not worry! By now I learned that ferrets have healthy instinct. If the meat is rotten, they would not eat it. But most of the time the meat they stash under a couch dryes up and they consume it without any subsequences.