Bones?

[ellebelle]

Hello again

Skinny Jimmy has been eating meat quite well for just over a week, he didn't bother with soup, straight to small chunks!

But when I introduces small bone (wind tips, chicken neck) he chewed off any meat/skin/fat and dumped the bone in his litter box!

Litter box was then 'contaminated' and wouldn't pee or poop in it...fussy bugger needs a very clean space apparently (or ocd not sure?)

He likes chicken hearts the most, but I wonder, our local butcher does do a bag of bone shavings (saved from the bone bandsaw) but it will include marrow, beef & pork bone is this too risky??

If I can't get him interested in bone what is the next step?
(his poop is somewhat runny and dark) drinking well & peeing a fair amount...

TIA

[caitmonster]

I would be concerned about the size and shape of the shavings, but I've never encountered those so hopefully someone else will know.

Sneaky boy sounds like he's trying to get out of the work of eating bones. Have you tried pulverizing pieces with a meat hammer or mallet? Gizzards are good for helping them build up jaw strength, too.

[ellebelle]

Thanks Caitmonster
I have a meat hammer so will give it a try...

Am over the moon to get him off the food he had with the previous owner, he's brighter, smells ALOT better, but it's early days with real meat but am aiming to get it right!

[colorguarder08]

My 2 will not eat bones for nothing. I've resorted to 2 things. 1) adding bone meal to their Franken prey 2) use balanced grinds.

[abbeytheferret6]

My Phoebe started eating bones after finding herself a piece of meat that had turned to jerky. I do not know if anyone has tried jerky first. After that she just did it all on her own---lucky me. Consistently putting meaty bones  before them may help---or leaving a meaty bone in cage at night(my boy likes snacking late at night). Mine all eventually went to bones. I think they enjoy crunching them now. Because my boy has problems with chicken, I do feed the more unusual,like frozen rat---the big ones. I skin and cut those up.

[Charlie]

When giving bone take a meat cleaver or a hammer to it and crush it up a bit smaller so it will break open and they will get the bone marrow as well and that may get them eating more bone as well.

[PatienceTheVirtue]

My guys wouldn't touch it at first unless I smashed it to get the marrow out like Charlie said. Definitely try that! But beware of splatter.

[colorguarder08]

Personally I've tried the smashing it til you can't even tell there are bones in it then working our way up from there but that didn't even work.

[raynebc]

It could be worth just trying smaller animal bones, like in mouse, rat, quail, cornish game hen, frog legs, etc. to see if the ferret likes any of them enough to eat in their entirety, bones and all.