Stocked in transition Chicken Soup...help needed

[mel01]

Hi, so I started the transitioning about 6-7 weeks ago, I haven't been able to feed them chicken soup everyday since for some weeks I couldn't find chicken hearts and other days I went out all day etc. Those days where I did not feed them the chicken soup they were on Ziwi.

I have some concerns:
1. I've seen some dried vomits around the apartment. I can tell they are vomits from the chicken soup, and noticed both of them have lost weight. In one of my ferrets I can see the ribs. What could it be? What can I do?

2. For how long is it ok for them to be on the chicken soup? Im concerned that they are not getting other nutrimental variety. I've tried venison liver but they did not like it at all, neither turkey.

3. Other issue is that they wont eat the chicken soup unless I put some salmon oil or olive oil in it. Otherwise they refuse even though I've tried many tactics. Also I need to stay with them and ensure they eat and sometimes spoon feed them, cause if not they'll just eat a little and run away. I've tried having them 12 hours without food so they get hungry and eat but its just not working.

Question, a recipe of chicken soup how many days should it last for 1 ferret? how can I tell if they're eating enough or not? I have given them small chunks of chicken with a creamy soup (the heart and liver are in a creamy soup cause they dont like it at all). What other proteins in your experience do they like after chicken? or what else can I add? I dont know how to move forward from the chicken soup, and how to make them like it without salmon or olive oil...

One ferret is 2.5 and the other is almost 2. Hope you can help me since I dont know what to do.

Thanks!

[Corvidophile]

One or both of them could have a chicken allergy if there’s vomiting evidence, I don’t suppose you’ve caught them in the act, just found the evidence later? You can try replacing the chicken muscle meat with beef, pork, turkey or lamb (or other more exotic meats if you see them) to see if that helps or they like it better. It’s ok to add a little salmon oil to it to entice them, that’s what I have to do to get my guy to eat anything that isn’t beef too. They can eat salmon oil in small amounts daily with no ill effects.

I don’t actually know how long the soup recipe should feed a ferret for as I skipped that stage and went a different route, sorry!

[mel01]

Thank you @codvidophile, what kind of beef do you feed and how do you mix it or what do you combined with? Any other good transitioning experiences are good so I can try new ideas... Thanks! =)

[Corvidophile]

I jumped to commercial grinds as my first foot wetting experience with raw, I used Nature’s Variety Instinct cat food. It comes frozen in certain Petco’s that have a frozen food section (not all stores do, but their website should have a product finder)

Now I feed ground beef with 15% fat mixed with Better In The Raw supplement powder, I mix up three pounds batches and freeze it into ice cube trays and thaw out as needed for the day. I also rotate in different proteins aside from beef, right now I have muskrat, beaver and lamb. The lamb is from the supermarket and I mix it with the powder just like the beef, the muskrat and beaver are ground muscle, fat, liver, heart, and bone. Should be theoretically complete meals, but: My ferret is a weenie and spits out the bone fragments, so I mix in bone meal power into his bowl when he eats the muskrat and beaver.

[abbeytheferret6]

I have given them small chunks of chicken with a creamy soup (the heart and liver are in a creamy soup cause they dont like it at all)

Will they eat chunks now?

Usually the next step is to cut meat in tiny bits or slivers. I used scissors to make quick work of that. Put some soupie in the mix but not a lot---maybe like resembling  cooked oatmeal. Mine were not fond of eating it cold, so u can put it all in a baggie and anchor it in some really warm water if that is the case with yours. Just a possible trick to get them hooked on the food with the new texture. 

But.... if yours are eating chunks that is good.

I've tried having them 12 hours without food so they get hungry and eat but its just not working

.
I would not use that as a tactic---some ferrets have insulinoma can cause a drop in blood sugar and bring on a seizure.

(the heart and liver are in a creamy soup cause they dont like it at all).

Totally ok to serve organs like this forever(lol). I had to do this with lamb liver and kidney until mine got the taste of guinea pig which I collect from  the frozen guinea pig that I get from Hare Today.

About hearts, Tyson Farms has gizzards and hearts and is sold at some stores. If you do not see a couple of hearts in the package is probably all gizzards. They are bad about that. I usually go online to get my hearts from Tasty Duck.

Have you tried cutting just hearts up and letting eat them try that? 

Here is some completed switching threads you can browse thru.
holisticferret60.proboards.com/board/73/completed-transitions

[Charlie]

mel01, you are from Toronto so try checking at Sobey's or Fortinos and check in the meat department for beef heart. Also go to the butcher counter and ask if they have any hearts because sometimes they haven't filled the shelves. Even ask when they deliver organs to the store so you can get some. When I was in Burlington visiting my sister we went to both stores and, I forget which store we were in, but I saw sliced beef hearts there. My sister's ferret is raw too. My sister's ferret will eat chicken no problem. Another store is Metro if you have those in Toronto. They tend to carry just chicken hearts. I know in my Metro here they have packages of just chicken hearts. If you have a small butcher store you can find, you may have a better chance of finding some harder to get meats. My butcher store I found here has beef heart for me. They are huge and last a long time! ha

I know my ferret doesn't like chicken. I have tried chicken a few times with him and he won't eat it. He has eaten tiny amounts and has thrown up before so I think he either just doesn't like it or is allergic to it. I won't force it.

I skipped the soup stage as well because my ferret has had some raw fed to him when he was young so he switched easy plus I switched him when he was just 3 months. My sister's ferret was also young so she switched fast too.

Seeing as you have found some vomit, like Corvidophile said, there could be an allergy to chicken there. The problem is which one threw up or if they both did, you don't know.

What I did with my ferret was always offer small pieces of raw meat when I was prepping my own meat such as ground beef, stewing beef, turkey breast, lamb chops, pork ribs, rabbit, and even baby mouse (I don't eat that!). lol I would hand feed him these small pieces and sometimes I would put a drop of salmon oil on it to entice him. I would just offer all types of different meats to see if he would like them and get use to them. Because your ferrets are a bit older you have to be consistent. Also if my ferret didn't always eat the meat I offered, I would leave it in his cage with him when I wasn't home. He would eat some but not always all but he ate it so that was a good sign.

Are your ferrets eating the soup mix you are giving them? You need to measure the amount of food you give them and then measure the food again once they have eaten to see how much they are eating. You will need to spend more time hand feeding them so you can actually see them eating the food and encouraging them to eat.