Looking for some advice for my EU Polecat

[MissPlaced]

Greetings!

This is my first post but I've been a silent lurker on this board for a while now.

First off, I would like to thank everyone for such fantastic advice and information.  I've never even known about keeping Ferrets/Polecats as pets before, until my son was given a Polecat for his birthday from his Girlfriend and after 6 weeks decided he didn't have the time for her, so I took her on.  This board and the website is where I've had the majority of my crash course in looking after my little furball.  So, Thank you!

Now, for the advice I'm seeking....

My pesky polecat is going to be 1 years old next week.  My son got her when she was 8 weeks old and she has been a lone polecat for all this time.  I only work 3 mornings a week.  I leave whilst she is asleep at 4am and I'm back usually by about midday.  During that time she is locked in her cage.  At night, when I go to bed, she is put in her cage too, but other than that she is free to cause as much mahem to the upstairs of my house as she likes.  She has tunnels attachted to walls, dig boxes, hidey holes, toys malore and last month I built an avairy outside with tunnels, ramps and a dig box for her to play in a few times a week.

Now my first question is...  Does she need a friend?  I worry that she might get lonely when I'm not here and at times I think she might get bored of this crazy woman talking to her all the time!  My son's Girlfriend has just told me that Aria's (Pesky Polecat) parents have just had another litter and would I like another one to keep Aria company.  I'm just not sure.  I read that Polecats are solitary in nature, but is that just in the wild?  Would she get jealous of having to share mine and my husbands attention with another furball?  I'm just not sure what is best for Aria, so any help or advice would be so greatly appreciated!

Now my other question is about Aria's diet.

When I took her on, we switched her to a full raw diet and she got along great with it.  Ate most things I gave to her but in the past 2 months, she has become really picky!  Her main food now is mainly lambs heart.  She tends to play with chicken feet and eat the toe parts.  She completely ignores the chicken necks now and any of the raw meats/offals I give to her.  She still loves her eggs and salmon oil and she has just started eating lamb mince.  I'm very fortunate as my husband is a butcher, so he brings home a lot of different cuts of meat for her, but she is turning her nose up at the majority of it, unless it's lamb heart!

So should I buy some kibble for her and put that in her cage?  Or is there anything else I can try?  I've tried her on a large variety of meats and there are a few that she has never touched, such as venison!  I'm not worried that she will go hungry but I'm worried that she isn't getting all the goodness that she needs in not having a varied diet.  

Okay.  Thank you for taking the time to read all that.  Hopefully I didn't put everyone to sleep!  Any and all advice is greatly appreciated!


I did try to leave by putting a smile on everyone's face with a photo of my pesky polecat but can't figure it out.  Keep getting a 404 error.  Have sympathy for this poor little polecat for having to put up with me!

Take care everyone and thank you in advance!


MissPlaced

[unclejoe]

Hi and welcome. I wish I had more experience with polecats. It was my understanding that wild poleys weren't as sociable, but I've had some ferrents say not so when they are raised in captivity from kits. As for introducing a new one, even domestic ferrets are a little unpredictable. Within a few months of When I started out, I ended up taking in 3 PAIRS of unwanted ferrets about a month apart. I had ONE to start with. I didn't know anything so I just threw in the new ones in the cage with the current residents and didn't think anything of it. I was lucky. It wasn't until years later we had a couple that hated each other and one would only tolerate one other ferret out of a business of 9. If possible, try to let your girl assist in selecting a potential cage mate. Yours is a year old, and females can be territorial. I never would have suggested that a few years ago, but Miss Prissy was a Real Canadian, and Jaffa was private bred, and she would try to kill him on sight and even hunted him for almost 5 years.

As for these ancient forums, they don't like photos directly from devices. You have to upload them from photo hosting sites. I use flickr.com select the BB code or url link and copy/paste to your post here.

I'm not a raw expert, but I know that variety is important to balance nutrients. Try to encourage mince along with hearts. You could maybe mix some heart meat into the mince for flavor?? Best wishes and I hope you stick around. There are other members who have more experience with raw feeding.

[PatienceTheVirtue]

What I do when my ferrets are especially picky is blend up the meats. My girl is the same way with hearts, she will absolutely gorge herself on all .75 ounces and leave my boy with absolutely nothing, so I had to adapt. Now I blend the heart in with the other organs so that she can't be picky. I think it may be helpful in your situation as well? If you blend her favorite (lamb heart) with whatever else you want her to eat, she may not turn her nose up as readily.

Taurine is peed out if in excess, but heart is still a rich cut and too much may make her ill. Do your best with limiting it and increasing other cuts, but try not to take a few steps back into kibble territory. You can also blend the meat with some egg (decreases time it can remain out) or salmon oil since you said she likes those as well. If you make it liquid enough, you can even syringe feed until she gets the taste for the meat back naturally.

Have you ruled out allergies to any cut of meat? Sometimes they feel unwell after a particular protein and start to associate bad feelings with different meats they had around the time they felt sick. It might be worth sticking to 1 protein for a week or two to see if there are any reactions.

Best of luck!

[Corvidophile]

As a stop-gap measure to make sure she’s getting all the nutrients she needs, I recommend mixing this product into her ground meat, it’s what I had to do when mine decided to go on strike and only eat ground beef: www.knowbetterpetfood.com/products/better-in-the-raw-for-ferrets

And then you can work on reintroducing more varied raw foods as a smaller part of the diet without worrying she’s gonna have an imbalance. Luckily heart is a pretty good one to be addicted to! But it’s still not feasible to feed predominantly heart.

[Charlie]

Have you tried rabbit or beef or turkey necks or pork riblets(ends of the ribs)? I chop up the pork riblets so that he can eat it better. I found my ferret won't eat chicken even when it comes to chicken hearts. I switched him to beef heart and he will eat that. He also eats beef liver and kidney.

The more variety the better. Bones are important in the diet too. Rabbit is good because they can eat most of that. I even feed whole adult large mice because he gets all his organs that way as well. I find his stool is the best when he eats his mice.

As for a friend, I have a single ferret and he has been doing great because I spend a lot of time playing with him and he gets his out time and toys to play with as well. I have thought about a friend and have been considering a hybrid however I do love the bond I have with my ferret. They do spend a lot of time sleeping as well. Mine is usually caged only during the day when I'm at work. The rest of the time he is out and/or sleeping in my bedroom instead of in his room. lol

[MissPlaced]

Thank you all so much for the replies!

I will try to blend up the heart and put it with other things. I had cut it up into really small pieces and mixed it with meats before, but she's a little ninja and still managed to dig out just the heart! So I'll try blending it into an almost mush and see if that works. I'm hoping it's just a stage she is going through, as she has just started eating minced lamb again, but still turning her nose up at everything else. Chicken she has never liked, but for some strange reason she would eat small amounts of poussin, she did use to love her chicken necks, so I still try her with them a couple of times a week. She also loves playing with her chicken feet, as I mentioned before. She never liked rabbit or venison either but she use to eat most other things!

Not tried her with pork riblets before, so I've asked my SO to bring some home for her and give her a go on them. I've also not tried her with mice yet, so I'll try to find some and see what she thinks. I can't find anywhere in the UK that sells the product that Corvidophile linked to, but I have a few ideas to be getting on with for now.

As for a friend, I'm leaning towards no, but keep changing my mind! She seems content enough and she doesn't lack for company when I'm home, I'm only usually out for 3 mornings a week for about 7 hours each (at least a few of those hours she is still asleep) and I have 4 adult sons living at home still, 2 of which she loves clambering on! She doesn't have any cage rage, 99% of the time uses her litter tray, even when running amok around the house and doesn't even mind her 6 monthly check-ups at the vets! Basically she is a sweetheart and my little princess! So I'm tending towards not rocking the cage so to speak.

Anyways, thanks again for the advice. Very much appreciated! If anyone comes up with anything else, please do let me know!

[unclejoe]

ours like turkey mince, but not chicken. you could try that as well.