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Post by Heather on Mar 15, 2011 22:58:13 GMT -5
Name: Bev HF Forum Username: Grimsqueaker
1. Where did you first learn about natural diets for ferrets?
On various ferret forums
2. Please describe the type of diet you would like assistance in switching your ferret(s) to. Be sure to include if you are interested in feeding whole prey (live or frozen-thawed) and if you are wanting to FULLY switch to a natural diet or PARTIALLY. If you are unsure what kind of diet you want to put your ferrets on, please express that and we can help you find the best type of natural diet for your ferret.
I am looking to move them onto a partially raw diet (no whole prey) but I don't want to take the kibble away completely, I want them to have it there incase they get peckish while I'm at work.
3. Why are you interested in switching your ferrets to a natural diet?
I have recently heard about the problems that kibble can cause and I am worried about my babies.
4. Do you understand that switching your ferret to a natural diet can be a lengthy, arduous process? Its not an overnight switch. It can be a commitment of several weeks or even months. Your HF Mentor will be more then happy to assist you in switchng your ferret(s) to a natural diet, but you need to be equally as commited. If you aren't willing to tough out a potentially lengthy switching process, or if you have major life changes approaching (baby on the way, moving, starting school, getting married/divorced, etc) then it might be a better idea to wait on switching your ferret's diet until you have more time. Are you willing to make the commitment?
Yes I understand.
5. How many ferrets do you currently have? What are their names? Ages? Genders? Do they have any health problems? Are they overweight? Underweight?
Kiki - 10 months old, female Miya - 10 months old, female Hurley - 10 months old, male None have any health issues.
6. What diet do you currently feed your ferrets? (Please include all treats, supplements, etc)
I feed a mix of Vitalin and James Wellbeloved and I give them freeze dried chicken chunks as treats and also ferretonic and ferretvite.
7. Have you ever tried to switch your ferrets to a natural diet in the past? If yes, what happened?
No although I have tried to give them a little bit of raw beef mince before as a treat and they didn't look impressed.
8. What additional information about yourself or your ferrets would you like to share?
9. How often during the week do you have access to a computer?
Everyday
10. Please post a picture of each of your ferrets (if possible).
Hi and welcome to the mentoring program. In a little while your mentor (sherry) will introduce herself and you can get started on a new adventure in natural ferret care and diets. Please remember to post regularly (daily or as per arranged with your mentor) so that your mentor can assist you move along safely in this adventure. If you experience computer difficulties or are going to be away, please notify your mentor and most of all relax and have fun . Your mentor is here to help you on this journey. ciao
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Post by Sherry on Mar 16, 2011 1:04:20 GMT -5
Hello there! I'm Sherrylynne, and I'll be your mentor for their switch First, a little about me. I'm 51, and have my own housecleaning business here in Calgary Alberta. I have 4 cats, ranging in age from 6yrs, to 17(only one would eat raw, unfortunately ). I also have 9 ferrets. Boris and Vincent came first, two brothers, a sable and albino. Then Sinnead. I got her when she was 2. She's now 5, and adrenal. She's on lupron, and I've decided against surgery for her. After that came my first deaf ferret, Lucrezia. A marked DEW. Then two foster ferrets, whom we fell in love with and adopted- Zeus and Athena, both two years old at that time. Also both adrenal, and on lupron. After that, a little abused ferret we called Willow. She was the worst fear biter I've had, although now she's becoming a sweetie . Then, Emily. 1 month younger than Willow, and those two have bonded strongly. She's the only one Willow wasn't terrified of.Suki is the last one, I swear! She was a little 8 month old darling the pet store was having a hard time selling, so were getting ready to send her back! While transitioning the first four, Boris was my hold out. EVERYTHING I gave him was poison, in his mind . Worst little drama queen I've seen yet . Twisting to get away, gagging, retching- he did all of it! Then one day- he ate it! Every single piece on the plate ! Those four haven't looked back. Although Boris would still be a kibble head if I let him. The next two for transitioning were the fosters. Until we adopted them, I could only supplement with raw. So in order not to cause unnecessary tummy upsets(mixing kibble and raw too closely can cause some problems- more about that later), I'd give them raw one day, and kibble on a different day. So, by the time we adopted, they had no problem with 100% raw diet. With Willow, I brought her home, and she flatly refused to eat the totally ferret kibble, so I went back to the pet store and got her a small bag of the crap they were feeding them there, and brought it home. I tried to give her some, but she just upset the dish. So- I tried her with some chicken breast. She ate it up! Hasn't had kibble since . Emily came to us as a raw fed ferret, so no issues there. Suki was another kibble head, but caging her in the daytime with Miss Emily showed her how to eat raw. That's me and mine in a nutshell The reason I started looking a raw feeding was something my vet said to me. I was, at the time, giving them small pieces of fruit for treats. She told me that was VERY bad for them, and in fact, some studies have started to link early feeding of sugars with insulinoma later in life. So- I started thinking. Kibbles are full of carbs. It's all those grains/veg/fruits in them. Those are converted to sugars by the body. To me then, sugar= potential insulinoma. So, I started checking out various diets. I had no idea what an obligate carnivore was at the time. I found out! Not much wonder there was soooo much poop in the box! I may as well have been tossing my money in there. They can't process anything that's not meat based! So I feed meat Their fur is softer, their energy levels are amazing- no mad rushes then crashing. Even my three year old's teeth are amazing. No plaque whatsoever Healing is faster, and if they do get ill, they have more reserves to rely on than when they were just kibble fed! And there is a LOT LESS POOP!!!! Yay! I'm looking forward to helping your little ones get on a much healthier diet, and having fun while we're at it ;D
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Post by Deleted on Mar 16, 2011 13:47:47 GMT -5
Hi there! I'm looking forward to getting them onto a more natural diet as all this insulinoma business worries me. So far I have tried them on Prize Choice freeflow chicken mince. When I get home from work I take their kibble out the cage and then a few hours later I give them a bowl of the mince. Kiki and Miya will eat a little bit but never a lot but that may be just because they're not hungry enough. I'm not sure about leaving the mince in their cage over night as it goes bad pretty quickly. Hurley, my male will give the mince a good sniff and maybe a lick but he doesn't get stuck in. Thanks so much for being my mentor
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Post by Sherry on Mar 16, 2011 21:58:57 GMT -5
Ok, next step then. Since they are already somewhat familiar with the raw you have, we'll work with that I'm assuming it's a fine mince? As in smaller mince than, say ground beef? If so, just blend it with enough warmish water to make a good sloppy consistency. If it's a course grind, you might want to send it through a blender to make it a finer grind/puree sort of mix. Again, take out the kibble(they are healthy, you can leave it out overnight if you like- it won't hurt them, and will help develop a better appetite ). Grab your chosen fuzz, and offer them some from your finger first. If they take that willingly, use a spoon to feed them with. What you want to do is get as much into them as they are willing to eat. Right now, it might only be a few licks, and that's fine. Give them the kibbles back when they go back into their cage. Just out of curiosity- when you say "goes bad pretty quick", do you mean it just dries out, or actually starts to smell off? Because all it should start to do within 12 hours is dry out a bit. It shouldn't be smelling off at all. Maybe a bit stronger because it's room temperature, but that's all.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 17, 2011 7:40:35 GMT -5
It dries out and goes stiff. Is it still ok to eat it when it's like that?
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Post by Sherry on Mar 17, 2011 9:02:44 GMT -5
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Post by Deleted on Mar 17, 2011 13:39:53 GMT -5
I've got some mince thawing at the minute and I've removed the kibble to try and get them nice and hungry. It's quite a thick mince and does have some hard little bits of bone in it but I don't have a blender or anything. If I see all 3 of them eating it tonight I might leave it in their cage over night and see if it's all gone in the morning
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Post by Deleted on Mar 17, 2011 16:18:06 GMT -5
I did what you said and made the mince a bit more mushy and all 3 of them are scoffing it down right now
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Post by Sherry on Mar 17, 2011 18:05:25 GMT -5
Excellent! Sometimes that's all it takes. I know mine- and they've been raw fed for almost 3 years now- will NOT touch commercial raw unless I've mixed in some water Ok, we need to decide where you are going to go from here. You can start slipping in slivers of meat, working up to the benefits of eating bone in meats, along with heart and organ, or you can stick with the commercial raw. If you want them to work up to full raw, you simply put in enough meat to last them til the next meal. The idea is to put in just enough so there's one or two pieces left that you then remove when you put in the next meal. That's how I work it. Whole meats can sit in the cage for up to 24 hours. Chunks for 12-18. Again- they won't eat it if it goes bad. If you want to keep them on the commercial raw, you can also introduce freeze dried raw, and put that out for them instead of kibble Oh- and if they have finished everything in their dish and are looking for more- give it to them ;D That means they are still hungry Although sometimes mine will finish everything, start hunting for more food, I put more in- and they take two licks and go back to bed
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Post by Deleted on Mar 18, 2011 7:39:32 GMT -5
I would like to do a mixture of commercial raw and chunks of meat and work up to chicken wings with the bone. Should I start putting small bits of raw chicken breast in with the mince? Can they eat chunks of stewing beef?
I bought this stuff from the butcher a while ago called a pet food stick. It was £1 for 1kg of it and it's ground chicken carcuss, hearts and liver and I think there's some beef in there too. This is the first thing I tried them on and they wouldn't eat it but I still have some in the freezer so once they're a bit more used to the mince I might try them on this again.
Do you know any good freeze dried raw food that you can get in the UK?
Also, I've seen people mentioning giving their ferrets pumpkin. Is this something they need? Are there any other non-meat items they need so they are getting all their vitamins?
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Post by Sherry on Mar 18, 2011 8:33:45 GMT -5
Never even realized you were in the UK! Let me check around later today about the freeze dried raw for you, see if I can dig anything up. Ok. Pumpkin is for replacing the non digestibles(like fur) from what would be a whole prey diet. It's fiber, pure and simple, and they cannot digest it. What it does, however, is help "keep the pipes clean" ;D I generally give 1/2 per ferret per day in their commercial raw in the mornings. If it's a heavy shedding season, I may give a bit extra, and if the fuzz has eaten something that is likely to cause a blockage- they get about 1 tbsp promptly! It will work faster at moving something through their systems than lax. Although both have their places. The pet carcass sounds pretty good to help fulfill bone nutrtional requirements, but definitely would need some meat in there. What are the percentages of meat/bone/organ in it? As for slipping in some meat slivers- give them a day or two of just what you are now, with the water to moisten it, and then start adding in tiny pieces of chicken, just a bit larger than the mince. They should accept that just fine
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Post by Sherry on Mar 18, 2011 8:43:40 GMT -5
Never even realized you were in the UK! Let me check around later today about the freeze dried raw for you, see if I can dig anything up. Ok. Pumpkin is for replacing the non digestibles(like fur) from what would be a whole prey diet. It's fiber, pure and simple, and they cannot digest it. What it does, however, is help "keep the pipes clean" ;D I generally give 1/2 tsp per ferret per day in their commercial raw in the mornings. If it's a heavy shedding season, I may give a bit extra, and if the fuzz has eaten something that is likely to cause a blockage- they get about 1 tbsp promptly! It will work faster at moving something through their systems than lax. Although both have their places. And it's the pure canned pumpkin, not the pie filling. You don't want anything else in there except pumpkin. The pet carcass sounds pretty good to help fulfill bone nutritional requirements, but definitely would need some meat in there. What are the percentages of meat/bone/organ in it? As for slipping in some meat slivers- give them a day or two of just what you are now, with the water to moisten it, and then start adding in tiny pieces of chicken, just a bit larger than the mince. They should accept that just fine
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Post by Deleted on Mar 18, 2011 15:03:36 GMT -5
It's going to be hard to get pumpkin in the UK, shops only sell it at halloween Does it have to be pumpkin? I don't know the percentages of what's in the pet food stick, I think it's just a mixture of offcuts the butcher has had that day so it might not be the same each time. Next time I go in I'll find out exactly what's in there. It looks like it has quite a bit of organ in it.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 20, 2011 7:53:27 GMT -5
I had a bit of a scare yesterday with Kiki. She was eating the mince and got a small piece of bone stuck in her mouth. She couldn't close it and starting frothing at the mouth. Took me a while to prise the bone out but now I'm worried that this will happen while I'm not around. Have you ever had problems with yours getting bones stuck?
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Post by Sherry on Mar 20, 2011 9:22:12 GMT -5
Yes, most definitely. It does take them practice, but they do learn to dislodge it on their own. That is the advantage of whole bone in over the grinds. Since they have to actually chew the bone, they tend not to get pieces big enough to stick like that. As for the pumpkin, any squash will work if you want to make some yourself. Just cook it to mush basically, freeze it in ice cube trays, and then baggie the cubes. That way, you only take out one cube at a time as you need it. And if the butcher's mix you've gotten has too much organ, just add some more muscle meat to help even out the proportions. That way, their stools won't be quite so bad
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