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Post by Leah S. on Mar 20, 2018 11:38:02 GMT -5
In desperate need of advice and help on how to get my ferret to eat a different food. She is 7 months old and completely imprinted on her Marshall’s food. It’s what she was being fed at the pet store, I didn’t want her on this food due to the ingredients. I slowly introduced Wysong digestive support & Orijen cat/kitten. I mixed the two new foods, and added only 1-10 ratio with her Marshall’s. It’s been two months and I’ve slowly tried increasing the new food to the old. I’ve tried making soups, I don’t think I can go any slower she absolutely won’t touch the new kibbles. She sits at the food bowl and picks out the pieces of marshals, if she gets a piece of the orijen or Wysong in her mouth she drops it and won’t touch it. I just desperately want to get her off the marshals. My younger ferret is already switched and also eating freeze dried raw, but the 7 month old is completely stuck on the marshals.
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Post by Blue on Mar 20, 2018 15:12:22 GMT -5
One trick for switching kibble is to mix them up in an airtight container and leave them like that for a week so that the smells blend, but it's still pretty easy for a determined ferret to pick out the pieces they want (Maisie did that too). Another trick is to soak the mixed kibble in water (1/3rd kibble, 2/3rds water) and then blend them together to make a kibble soup. That being said, I found it harder trying to switch Maisie from crap kibble to Orijen than switching her directly to raw. If you're going to have a hard time either way, you might as well go directly to raw. I think the easiest way to start would be to make the raw soup, and use the "grab and dab" method: while she's out, every so often, grab her and smear a little soup on her mouth or nose. That way she licks it off and eventually figures out it's something good. The raw soup recipe is here: holisticferretforum.com/natural-diet/raw-diet-the-meat-of-the-site/raw-soup-recipe/Good luck, and let us know how it goes!
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Post by Sherry on Mar 21, 2018 9:26:04 GMT -5
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Post by boozle on Mar 22, 2018 7:46:10 GMT -5
You could try grinding up the marshals to a powder and coat the other kibble with it.
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Post by bishop24 on Mar 22, 2018 9:34:48 GMT -5
Our guy is like this too and every new thing we introduce takes a “bit” of effort. In the end putting the two kibbles in an airtight container worked the best as blue said but I would suggest just going straight to what your other ferret is on. He will protest and act like it is poison but it will be worth it in the long run. We switched our guy off of Marshall’s and onto a “better” kibble but he ended up with bladder stones anyways. He had surgery and we had to give him antibiotics and it was awful. I’m sure he would have rather just switched to raw. We started with the grab and dab method with raw soup (or FDR) and eventually moved up to spoon feeding him. The day we moved the spoon down to the bowl and he started eating by himself was joyous. It’s difficult and takes patients and consistency but you will get there! Good luck 😉
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