I'm the new guy.....

[chrismbyron]

Hello everyone,

Thank you for allowing me to join your forum. I have from time to time in the past visted this forum as a guest and have always found an answer to my question or bettered my research results.

I'm excited to be able to learn from such a wealth of knowledge and experience, I hope in time I may help my fellow ferants here at home with accurate fact based information to improve our understanding of these awesome little creatures and give them what they deserve. Nothing but the best!!!

So, I'm from Sunny South Africa and a couple years back a few pairs of ferrets were brought into SA for a "Zoo" educational center type establishment. These guys are technically not 100% legal, but it's a big debate with no clear cut answer from government or hobbyist. Some provinces don't prosecute and others will not hesitate to remove and destroy the animal and slap you with a fine.

This establishment is no longer in existence and the ferrets have landed in the hands of a few people scattered across South Africa, some are good ethical people with good morals and respect for these guys and unfortunately others don't.

My aim for asking to join your forum is to build a Base of knowledge and experience to share with perspective homes to balance a rapidly growing demand for these guys, the biggest issue I've come across is a lack of basic understanding and a lack of factual information for research and health care. There are very few vets who can work with these guys and we aim to offer accurate medical information and links for our local vets to improve their ability to handle basic medical care to advanced disease treatment and management.

They are scarce, but that won't be the case for long with some of the unethical people breeding indescriminately. For this reason there is already a base for a rescue / rehome center as we've seen the results of poor research and breeder ethics rearing it's head.

Anyways, that's a little bit of background, but there is so much more that will need attention in the future and we are looking to be prepared for it as best we can.

I have had my guys for a little over 4 years and I don't regret one second of it... Crash and Comet are my oldest snuggle buddies, Crash is a Sable Hob and Comet is a Sable jill.

Lucky was just that, a lucky little kit who's mom stopped producing milk to soon and he was the only one who made it through. Unfortunately the breeder was inexperienced and realise far to late.

I bottle fed lucky through the 3rd week until I moved him onto soft pourage around 5 - 6 weeks and then onto solids around 8 - 10 weeks.

Sadly I lost my buddy to what my vet said was a genetic predisposition to bladder stones and his diet is what agrivated his sensitivity to the pea extracts in the kibble I was using. It was a hard lesson to learn and I felt horrible for letting him down so terribly.

Bandit is a dark Sable jill that was unwanted by her home and was housed in a tiny little rabbit cage. She's now a very happy well fed piggy that loves toes and her raw eggs with a some duckfat...

Gizmo is a young white and grey Hob who absolutely goes bonkers for his swimming pool and ball pit... he's the first to get soaking wet and the last to get dried off, probably an otter in his past life 😂😂

I have had the pleasure of rearing my own kits, but the homing process kills me... I'm very very strict as to who I consider a worthy home.

Thanks for reading my ramblings and I look forward to chatting to all of you...

Peace and love ✌

[lee]

HellO.   I hope you find all the info you need. 

[Sherry]

Hi and welcome You have an amazing goal, and I hope we can help you reach it. For the vets, the people here www.ferrethealth.msu.edu/ are usually more than willing to help with diagnosis etc.
For research for you and others our website is often easier to navigate holisticferretforum.com/
For questions, we will help as best we can!

[Sherry]

LindaM I am not sure if you can help here at all with resources from S. Africa

[LindaM]

Uhm, I can always try to help with some, LOL. As for vets, heck, I just hope they are better than they used to be, I remember most being cocky, rude and totally unwilling to listen and learn. But I still feel unsure, as to my knowledge while there are now more people in the country that have ferrets, they are still deemed to be illegal/banned overall. So best bet there is to get a vet who will fly under the radar and is willing to listen and do some research in their spare time. And I will keep on hoping that they will get rid of that stupid ban one day, it doesn't even make sense, that way the vets will be free to start getting themselves properly educated without risking fines or closures to their establishments.

Whereabouts are you located in SA, Chris? I'm South African born, and lived there for 23 years of my life, until I relocated to the US to marry my husband, but my family still lives over there.. scattered from Cape Town, to Kimbelery, to Nelspruit, haha.

So, my first thought on all this is to move onto a natural, balanced raw diet. This gets rid of the stupid bladder & kidney stone risks from kibble, and reduces chances of insulinoma (when you start them young enough of course, if you kibble fed for a time, there is risk it can indeed show up later). Have you had a chance to look through the forum or the website on raw feeding?

Personally, I think SA would be a wonderful place to feed ferrets raw. Butchers have always been quite approachable, and would easily hold back certain "less desirable" bits for you. There is little end to all the various kinds of proteins you'd be able to get a hold of, especially from farmers and hunters. Heck, makes me wonder if I could stuff dead animals into my suitcases to bring home for my babies once I am able to go visit my family again, haha.

Depending on where people are located in SA, I may advise against outdoor enclosures entirely, definitely in the summer months. The temperatures in some places can go sky high (think around 38C/100F or higher at times), and ferrets start risking the chance of heat stroke in temperatures going above 80F (that's 27C). What could be done is to create an enclosure along the house, with easy access into and out of it between the two, that way ferrets can decide to remain inside the home when it's too hot outside. And then you get to hope people will understand it that way. Another option is to make sure an outdoor enclosure has Aircon and other methods of cooling, but again, in certain areas of the country even people feel like melting, fans and Aircon notwithstanding, so I'd be cautious to risk it.

[unclejoe]

Hi Chris. I'm Chris as well. I live in East Tennessee, USA. I wish you the best in your endeavors. You sound like a great ferrent. I am always trying to educate people in the ways of ferrets. I'm lucky to have found a decent ferret vet or 2 within reasonable driving distance, and they are willing to take suggestions on further research, as they don't see many ferrets. In my early days I took in a lot of rescues, and had as many as 10 in the house at once, going from 1 to 10 in less than 3 months.

Welcome to the group. I found this forum while researching insulinoma. I's sorry for your loss. For a while I was feeding a once respected ferret kibble until I found out about peas and stones.

We'd love to see pics of your little ones.

[abbeytheferret6]

Hi and welcome to the forum.

[chrismbyron]

Hi Guys and girls, sorry for the delay....

Thank you so much for the warm welcome, it's really great to see such enthusiasm and passion for new members.

I'll upload pics once I've figured out how to 😊

My guys are on a strictly raw diet, I stopped feeding kibble completely after I lost lucky. I use to split it 70/30 raw to kibble,but now they get strictly raw and nothing else. They get mince made up of whole chicken chicks and rats I add adult chicken breast, necks, hearts and livers. I also add some duckfat, coconut oil,salmon oil and they get their raw eggs twice a week in the mornings.

I did consider and outside enclosure, but as you say temps here are insane in summer and it will very quickly overcome a Fuzzbutts tolerance. So they are indoors mostly and I may switch them to outdoors for autumn, winter and spring. Would be a good idea to look into an outside inside shoot so they have free access to either outside or indoors to keep cool.

I have been very lucky to make contact and include in our growing network some fantastic vets. Open minded and very eager to learn and share their experience and knowledge. As a whole vets in SA are still generally arogant and very cocky, but we work with the few gems we have and keep pushing forward.

Thank you so much for allowing me to join your forum, I have a confession to make though. I read your copyright note after I had shared some info with my Fuzzbutt group, I did however state it is not my article and I am vwry greatful yo the source of the information I shared. I'm careful not to openly tell people where I get my info from as there are some really horrible people in our industry that wouldn't hesitate to harras this forum.
If you would prefer I add the forums link and any other credits to the authors I will gladly. I do apologise for jumping the gun.....

I'm very excited to explore your forum further, I've been reading up on common questions we have been receiving and I've found clearer and far more comprehensive answers to assist our Ferrants 😊

Tonight is spoils night and my nut jobs are getting some home made Biltong I've made for them, it's 100% natural with no salts or spices added to it at all. They absolutely love it, I do need to give it to them one at a time or they tend to squabble.

Tomorrow I'm doing baths, nails, ears and they all get a lick of salmon oil once they done.

I must say I have never had another animal quiet like a ferret, I'm glad I took the chance.

[Sherry]

Please add the links yes. We have dealt with nasty trolls before, and will again in the future I have a no harassment policy in both this forum and the fb group so they'll be gone so fast it'll make their heads spin!

[Blue]

Hi Chris, and welcome! You're doing a wonderful thing. It makes me happy to think of all the ferrets who are benefiting from your careful research. I'm so sorry about the loss of Lucky.

Tomorrow I'm doing baths, nails, ears and they all get a lick of salmon oil once they done.

Just a note, ferrets are like cats: they don't need baths unless they've got themselves into something disgusting (always a possibility with ferrets!). Baths remove their natural oils, which irritates their skin, and causes their bodies to produce more oil to compensate. If it's just warm water because they enjoy it, that's fine. I've always wondered what Maisie would think of a bath, but she's never got dirty enough for me to find out!

[LindaM]

That's great to hear they are fully on raw! Keep in mind a few things when you feed a mince (or what we call ground/grinds here). You will need to brush your ferrets' teeth several times a week to cut down on plaque and tartar. Only crunching through whole bones, several meals a week will clean their teeth through diet.

Also your diet seems to be lacking a bit in bone by the sound of it, and protein variety of it. We recommend doing a minimum of 2 different sources for bone-in. (Baby animals do not count for meals, only as treats, eg. pinkies and chicks.) Could you maybe give me a full run-down of your diet? In a Monday-Sunday AM & PM form? I would just like to help make sure it is well balanced. Definitely need more proteins than just chicken and rat though. A diet heavily relying on chicken could lead to chicken sensitivities along the line as well.
Example of Diet Layout:
Monday AM:
Monday PM:
Tuesday AM:
....

Hm, I'd get rid of the coconut oil, it serves no purpose in a carnivore's diet as it is plant-based, and their bodies cannot process it. The salmon oil is good (please check that it is salmon oil only, and doesn't have flavoring added like some human supplements often do by adding a citrus flavor), limit on that is 1tsp per ferret, per week. Just don't give too much duck fat overall, a little is good, but too much can also be very unhealthy. Raw eggs are great. The limit of raw eggs are 1 chicken egg per ferret, per week. Double during the shedding season. If you offer quail eggs, it's 3 eggs per ferret, per week (around 5 eggs in shedding). Duck eggs tend to be too rich for ferrets usually. I am highly going to assume the same of ostrich eggs, and that is waaaay too much egg anyway, haha.

Excellent news on the vets! I am so glad to hear there are those who are willing to listen and learn after all. They may well be the ones who could usher in an new era where people don't see ferrets as an "invasive".."rodent", sigh. We can hope, right?

Of course, the fuzzies love biltong!!! My alpha female actually makes some herself by letting them dry out in stashes (we keep our home on the cool side, so the meat doesn't rot) and then eating them, or having the boys steal them from the stashes to munch on. Here in the US, it's just "jerky", which is nothing like biltong or how it is made back home, so people often get pretty confused when I say my ferrets make biltong.

As for the baths, like Blue said, they have no need of them. Only use a bit of warm water to get stuff off like pee or poop, or anything else honestly, unless it is something harmful to the ferret and stubborn about getting off, then and only then you can use the teeniest bit of a no tear's baby shampoo like Johnson & Johnsons. But other than that, we do not bathe our ferrets they have zero need for it, and it can make oil production worse and make them smell more (shampoos and soaps strip natural oils, which makes them produce even more in an attempt to fix it). I do keep a flat plastic tub with water in our ferret room as some of mine enjoy water sports and snorkeling out toys from the bucket.

[chrismbyron]

Helloooooooo everyone!!!

Been a crazy busy couple days, I hope you are all well. I've been seeing all the weather warnings in the UK, looks like you all have your work cut out for you.


It's starting to cool down here, we averaging in low to mid 20's now.

So my last post I haven't had a chance to respond to, so here goes...

Baths I keep to an absolute minimum, it strips their natural oils and causes an odor problem, I bath if I really need to and this was one of those eeewww!!!! You need a scrub buddy moments 😂😂😂

I use Johnson and Johnson no tears baby shampoo that's mixed with a khakibos tea.

I brush them twice a week and do nails, ears and check teeth every second week.

My diet regime I'm quiet sure could do with some improvements.....

Mondays:

AM is one raw egg each first thing, this is followed by their bowl of carcas mince with a table spoon of duck fat mixed in.

Pm they get mince with some salmon oil and they get a teaspoon tip of coconut oil to lick. ( I use coconut oil because they love it and it's improved my older fellas fur)

Tuesday:

AM: They get whole chicken necks, hearts and some liver. As much as they want and then I remove any left overs and quick check for any stash.

Pm: they get their regular mince meal.

Wednesday:

Am: The mince I use I have made "kibble" out of by adding some salmon oil to aid clumping and then drying till its nice and firm with a biscuit type consistency.

My thinking on this was to aid in teeth cleaning and working the jaw muscles. I refuse to risk offering any kibble available here after I lost lucky...

I honestly haven't looked into any other kibbles and we don't have any ferret specific products available here at all, most of our diets here are based on lots of research and improvising with what we have. It's not to difficult with our range of agricultural animal products available.

Pm: They get their usually mince meal and some of my homemade biltong (unseasoned and no preservatives or additives)

I need to feed this separately or there will be squabbling....

Thursdays:

AM: One raw egg each ( one raw chicken egg or if I have they'll get 4 raw quail eggs)

This is followed by their "Kibble" mix for breakfast.

Pm: normal mince meal and a teaspoon lick of salmon oil.

Friday:

Things get messy from here 😉

Am: one whole bird carcas. I try vary this as best I can, I use either chickens, quail, Guinea fowl or duck if I can get.

Pm: whole adult rat carcasses. They love these, gets quiet messy though....

Saturday:

Am: normal mince meal and if I'm making some they'll get a small piece of bacon fat, very small piece.

Pm: Normal "kibble" meal.

Sunday:

AM: Normal mince meal with some duck fat mixed in.

Pm: normal "kibble" meal.


I do switch days around and vary the routine so they don't get board.

[Sherry]

If I am reading correctly, it sounds like you are doing fairly well

[LindaM]

Ugh... darn you.. talking about bacon.. you have no idea in the world how much I miss bacon from SA! Here in the US the bacon is basically all FAT with a pencil-thin line of actual meat, because they use entirely different cuts than in SA (which is apparently referred to as a "European cut"). I haven't had good or even decent bacon in 3 years!

I have to agree with Sherry, your menu actually isn't all that bad looking. So I am glad you clarified some more on it.

So the thing about teeth cleaning, grinds/minces (even the ones that are more coarse) don't do much for cleaning teeth, but what IS cleaning teeth in your diet though will be those pieces of actual bone-in meals such as the chicken necks or your whole prey meals. Crunching up those bones allows them to scrape the teeth clean. So as long as there's a few of those in your menu, it should help their teeth just fine.

And you are right about the kibble, just stay away from it, it's so much safer and healthier to just do the raw.

Is the mince you feed a balanced mince? I remember seeing you say "carcas" mince, is it whole ground animal, or perhaps animal parts with some heart and organs? So here for our grinds, unless it is a whole animal grind which immediately makes it balanced, we try to keep to these ratios with it: 65-70% Muscle, 10-15% Bone, 10% Heart, 10% Organs (AT LEAST half of that needs to be liver).

[chrismbyron]

Feb 28, 2018 8:22:17 GMT -5 Sherry said:

If I am reading correctly, it sounds like you are doing fairly well

Thank you 😊 I was really worried I was way off base and messing up big time....