Thoughts on weekly diet

[Deleted]

Well, I think I have this raw feeding mostly sorted. My guys don't get any kibbles or added sugars in their diets, just straight raw products, but would still like to run the weekly diet I have them on by everyone, just in case I can make some modifications for the better. Hopefully there won't be much to modify, as everyone looks pretty plump & healthy, & it's been like this since my last thread But any thoughts would be appreciated.

After talking to a friend about the diet of his own ferrets, I made up some meat packs going off his recipe for them. The base is kangaroo mince, beef & lamb heart, then beef & lambs kidney, with a tiny bit of liver added in.
The actual recipe calls for chopped chicken necks or chopped up mice, but I didn't add those & added more organ. I think the ratio for me worked out to be 2/3 meat & 1/3 organ. Other than the mince, everything is in chunks & just been mixed into a lumpy mass of red.
So, the current routine is this:

Monday: meat pack.
Tuesday: meat pack.
Wednesday: bone.
Thursday: meat pack.
Friday: liver & bone.
Saturday: bone.
Sunday: straight meat chunks, sometimes an egg or fish.

The bones I use are typically chicken necks or wings, but I use turkey wings, ox tail, beef bones, chicken marylands, pork or lamb bones. All of them are quite meaty, so it works out as a meat meal too.
Liver is lambs, their poo is really slimey so I always give them some bone afterwards to make it more conformed, which does the trick.
Meat chunks are normally chicken, pork or beef. Fish is a rare thing, normally sardines, as they quite enjoy it, as with the egg & they had some shrimp which went down well maybe a fortnight ago.

I'm considering giving them a neck with each meat pack, or just adding necks into the next batch of packs I make up. I haven't noticed anything concerning, but just thought it would help to firm it up a bit. Thoughts?

Otherwise, everyone smells pretty good, teeth are nice & white, breath smells meaty fresh. Going off the poo chart (which is on my wall ) I can't see anything abnormal in their faeces.

Also, just on a side note, but I tried them on whole baby chicks last week, I think it was, which they all seemed to really enjoy, so I'll probably look at making that a more frequent thing if I can find a reliable supply of them.

[Heather]

It doesn't look bad, though I would up the bone content myself. If your guys stool appears ok it might be alright but I would give one more day of bone. Ferrets have a high calcium need so my concern would be their calcium and mineral needs.
Chicks are a wonderful treat with very little nutritional value, I would offer it on occasion but treat it as candy rather than a meal. To get true value one needs to feed a higher amount of older prey.
ciao

[Deleted]

Is there any bone in the kangaroo mince? If not I'd wanna up the bone a bit.

[Deleted]

Also, liver should only be 5% of the total diet, and other organs like kidney make up the other 5%, so make sure you aren't giving too much liver. 5-10% is about 2-3 oz a week if the ferret eats an average of 4 oz a day.

[Deleted]

It does contain some bone, but not a lot. So I'll give them some a neck/wing with each meal. I'm adding in egg shells (just the shell) into the next batch I think, would that also help?

As for liver, I was under the impression it was higher? However, providing my conversion is correct, they eat just a little more than 2 oz when I feed it, as each bag is around 300g, which is 10 oz, & that divided between 4 ferrets is something like 2.5 oz. Maybe. Does someone want to double check my math?

[Sherry]

Yes, liver is 5%, or about 2oz of liver per ferret per week. Same for any other organ. So 2.5 oz a week would likelyl be fine. Just go by the stools. They will develop diarrhea from it before any overdose of vit. A occurs.
Heart is NOT an organ, and is fed as a muscle meat at least once a week. About how much heart are they getting in the meat pack?

[Deleted]

I realise heart isn't an organ. Not sure on the amount of heart in the mix, I never took it into account as it's a muscle & was being mixed in with the kangaroo mince, which is muscle meat as well. I really need to write the amounts down when I make up them up.

[Sherry]

I was just wondering because of the need for taurine. It might be something you want to give an extra meal of, just in case. I try to feed two meals a week of just heart, but sometimes only do one.

[Deleted]

Taurine was something I was concerned about, which is another reason why I sometimes give them fish & am trying to find brain to give them also. I'm assuming frozen heart is better than none if I give it just on it's own? I've got a meat pack slowly defrosting, so I can probably check it out & make a guess at how much heart is in there.

[Sherry]

All the meat I give has been frozen at some point- including the whole prey There is some degradation of the taurine, which is why I prefer to feed two meals weekly when I can, but even one seems to be good most times.