How to get them to eat squash

[corrij]

From what I've been reading getting the fuzz balls to eat squash or pumpkin is fairly important to help bulk up their poops (been thinking way too much about poop lately). But neither of them seem to interested in it. I think I can try mixing it with some ferretone for Cyrano, he loves the stuff. But I haven't found anything Draco is wild about yet. He sorta likes olive oil, but isn't crazy over it.

Anyone have any tips or tricks?

[Deleted]

Mixing it with oil would probably be the first thing I'd try. Have you tried both pumpkin and squash? It's possible they'll like one more than the other.

As for the oil, see if you can get your hands on some salmon oil or other fish oil, a lot of ferrets like it better than the olive oil. The ferretone is okay to use to at first, but I wouldn't want to be using it everyday because of the preservatives it has in it (I only use it for nail trims or at the vet). The people who make ferretone also make a different one... can't remember what it's called, ferrevite maybe? Anyways it's emu oil and a few other things without the bad preservatives. But natural salmon/fish oil (people or pet version) is probably the best for them.

The other option too, depending on which stage of the raw switching process your at, would just be to sneak it into their raw food i.e. mix it into their raw soup if your feeding soup or if your feeding chunks of meat see if you can sneak a little bit in and stir it up with the meat's natural juices.

Good luck

[corrij]

The boys skipped soup and went right to ripping apart chicken wings. Hopefully they'll be sweet and not give me problems with the switch. Course they are babies and I've been told that makes it easier.

I didn't find any pumpkin when I last went to the store but I'll look at another when when I go grocery shopping this weekend. I'll try the oil in the squash tonight. If they wont eat it will they be ok to go till the weekend with out it?

I'll pick up some fish oil too when I go shopping, does it come in capsules or a liquid? I just seem to remember my mother in law having capsules.

[Deleted]

I always try it plain first. Sometimes the older guys surprise you and just take to it (2 of mine did), and a lot of the time the youngsters just lap it up, too. You can also try getting some on your finger and dabbing their mouth with it, or if you hand wrestle, you can kind of work in a smear of it when they go to "attack". If they still don't there's always using oil, their food or baby food or slushies to get that in their diet, so you're bound to find SOMETHING that works and gets them that fiber.

They'll be fine until the weekend. This is a supplement more than a necessity, so no worries, we just like to fill in that gap of indigestibles (plus have firmer poos, but eggshell/bone meal powder on boneless meals with do the same thing, and bone in meals generally create firm poos unless they aren't ingesting the bone) when we don't feed a natural/whole prey diet (well, and plus I find it works better than anything else for hairball/foreign objects, so there's that, )

[corrij]

No luck with them eating it plain but when I mixed in the EVOO they decided they liked it just fine. Except that Draco will only eat it off my finger. Not off the spoon or the bowl but if I scoop it up it becomes nummy.

I mixed about a teaspoon with about 1/4 tsp of oil and they each ate about half of it. How much squash should they have a day or every other day?

[Deleted]

I actually use Katt's trick. When I make up a baggie of muscle meat, I always put some squash in there and mush it up. The squash coats the meat so the fuzz usually lick it right off.

[Sherry]

1/2 tsp each of the fiber a day is enough for them. And coating the meat after it's chopped and baggied is a great idea.