Food amount, adult age?

[dustyashes]

Hi. I'm posting here since it pertains to how much to feed my babies. I'm a new ferret mom to five fuzz butts now. I got my first two, Dagger and Cloak, in November (2021) and then two more, Rogue and Intrigue, in December and one more, Ghost, this month. The first four mentioned were born in September and are now, as of yesterday, fourth months old. I have misplaced Ghost's birth certificate but I believe he was born October 26th. Now, based on all my research, I know eating amounts vary and kits can eat up to 20% of their body weight but can someone please, please tell me around what age they stop doing that and start eating around 10%? I have read that they are considered adults at 4 and 12 months. I have also read that they stop growing at four months and eight months but are still considered kits (which doesn't make sense if they eat so much for growth reasons.) And also that at one year they are adults and stop growing. What, if any, of these ages are right?
Background: I'm asking because there has been a lot of food (Frankenprey diet) leftover for the last few days per meal. It's about less than half but more than a quarter. They are eating, drinking, and pooping normally and are not begging me for more food. They aren't extra sleepy or anything... Literally nothing has changed in the way I've been feeding nor in the amount. Could this be because they are no longer eating for growth? Thank you!

[dustyashes]

P.S. Sorry if this information is posted somewhere already. I looked but I probably wasn't phrasing my search right.
P.S.S How do you post photos?

[eclipso]

I found this from an article

"The average ferret will eat 5-7% of its body weight on a daily basis - this is about 50-75 grams of food for a ferret weighing 1 kg. However, the quantity of food differs from animal to animal and according to life stage.
Ferrets will require larger quantities during growth, gestation and reproduction. A reproducing female require a minimum of 30% protein in their diet and kits require more protein and fat. Older ferrets may need less food and of course if you think your pet is gaining weight, feed levels should be adjusted."

If we're talking about food needs, ferrets become adults at months-ish, or when they're fully grown in size and start looking for mates and get all romantic. I'd say your ferrets still need more food than adults, but they're eating less and it's normal. If you feed raw, you can weigh the food you give them and weigh the food left over to see how much they ate, then you get a number that's roughly the amount they need. If it's fall or winter ferrets will also eat a lot more (to fatten up), so take into account the seasons. They eat less in spring and summer.

I hope this helps, but if I left any questions unanswered than please do tell me

[unclejoe]

to post photos you have to put them on a hosting site like imgur, et al, and copy and paste the BB Code (url) link into your post here. I use flickr. I have used photobucket in the past, but they suddenly decided to charge for their services, after I had over 4000 images on 2 accounts, and I had to pay for a month to be able to copy tose albums back to my compu9ter. Most sites have a storage limit, including flickr.
here is a list of sites
www.softwaretestinghelp.com/best-free-image-hosting-sites/

[dustyashes]

Thanks. That helps. How many months-ish? It is "winter" here in NM but it's been in the high 40s low-mid 50s and we keep the house around 68 degrees... I'm guessing that probably makes a difference too. How long should I weigh the food for to get an accurate amount? A week? Two...?

[eclipso]

I'd say 2 months to be fully grown and 6 months to be able to reproduce, so 6 moths they are done growing. Yes, the temperature and lighting affect whether the ferret think's it's winter or summer. If you keep the lights on after it's dark, for example, the ferret can make more summer mating hormones. So just make sure to keep the ferrets with the natural day-night cycle and turn their lights off at night or cover their cage with blankets.

To weigh the food, you just weigh a lot of food before giving it to the ferrets, then give all the food you weighed to them for a day, and then weigh the leftovers. Then you'll subtract the leftovers to what the amount you gave at the beginning and that's how much they ate. Divide that by the number of ferrets that were eating and you see how much (roughly) each one ate.

[alvar]

Around 6 months they should start to slow down their consumption. Around 9 months they should be eating an adult amount = 10% of their body weight roughly. I'd suggest a journal to find an average of what they're eating. As long as there's a few mouthfuls left over then they're eating to their fill. As babies, let them how much they want.

[lovepetslove2022]

Hello . If you are still looking for an answer.
"Ferrets should not be fed with carbohydrates (such as vegetables, fruits or grains) as their main source of energy. Ferrets do not metabolize fiber as it does in fruits and vegetables. Foods that contain significant amounts of fiber have a reduced nutritional value.

Taking care of a Ferret won't be difficult if you follow the simple tips here foods ferret

When feeding a ferret, the diet should contain 30-40% highly digestible ferret protein, 15-25% fat and 5-10% vegetable carbohydrates. "

[lovepetslove2022]

Complete Nutrition Ferret Diet
Ferret Diet can be divided into 3 types:

Live food;
Feeding with live food is considered ideal, but on condition that the fed rodents or small birds are absolutely healthy and raised on sound grain mixtures. Very young animals don’t have enough fat, and older animals may have too much and not enough protein, so it’s better to go for middle age. Mouse rodents are the natural diet of ferrets and are best suited to their nutritional needs. Forage mice and rats must be healthy and bred specifically for this purpose. In addition to rodents, occasionally the ferret can be fed with chickens, meal worms, forage cockroaches. However, such a feeding scheme is hardly acceptable in urban conditions and does not suit many people for humane and aesthetic reasons, so we are forced to look for alternative feeding schemes for ferrets.

“Minced meat and porridge”;
“Minced meat and porridge” for the ferret is made up of muscle meat, bones, offal and very boiled porridge. The composition of “minced meat and porridge” must be brought closer to what a whole rodent or bird consists of, ie. with all the giblets, and boiled porridge will replace the half-digested contents of the stomach of a rodent or bird. And also add a vitamin complex.

Dry food;
So far, there is not a large assortment of dry food for ferrets on the market for pet supplies, but those that are not of very high quality. Ferrets can be fed with super premium kitten dry food or specially formulated dry ferret food.

Never feed your ferret “off the table” – the same food that you yourself eat. Do not forget that you cannot mix natural food and dry food, feed with one thing.

Ferrets need a lot of water. A lack of water quickly leads to dehydration (dehydration of the body), so fresh water must be available to the ferret at all times. It is better not to give the animal chlorinated tap water, but to offer boiled water. Change the water at least once a day.

[lumboo]

I only feed my boys raw food and I noticed I was feeding slightly less when they were 5 months old

They don't eat just because food is there, so when I saw bowls not eaten I adjusted the daily amounts

They also upped their intake when the weather got colder (my boys are kept outdoors)

I don't weigh out the food anymore - I did for the first few months - as its easier to gauge what they require

I'll be sad when they shed their winter coats. They look like huge fluffballs at present lol