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Post by Deleted on Nov 18, 2011 0:52:24 GMT -5
Hi everyone! Currently my gang are on raw meat 24/7 with chicken necks to clean their teeth and mice when I can afford them, as far as I know its illegal here to feed live prey to animals or at least to buy animals with the intent to feed to another animal but I have been considering starting up my own feeder colony of mice, I just have to get the all clear from my mother We are a kibble free ferret house but we keep some as a back up just in case. So at the moment i'm looking for more ideas of meats and other goodies that I can feed my gang. One of them has to have a somewhat low fat diet though, so I was thinking of finding him some quail or forking out for kangaroo for him. At the moment they are on lean human grade beef that I get from my cousin who is a butcher They get raw eggs with lactose free milk, oil and nutrigel for treats at the moment and thats about it. Even with all the necks I give them they're teeth still don't get as clean as I would like them, would there be a food to help with that?
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Post by dook2dook on Nov 18, 2011 1:09:21 GMT -5
Give them some organs like heart, liver etc. If you want some thing different maybe some rabbit?
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Post by dook2dook on Nov 18, 2011 1:09:52 GMT -5
Oh and also it is illegal here in Aus so I reccomend buying pre-frozen pinkies
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Post by Deleted on Nov 18, 2011 1:13:00 GMT -5
My guys love rabbit and love hunting for them during the season but atm its the off season I'm pretty sure we've got some beef kidney in the freezer and none of them will touch it at all so I have to give it to the dogs I know its illegal its quite unfortunate When I was getting free bags of 100 mice it was fantastic but they'd go through them in about two weeks and now that I have to pay for them at around $1 a mouse it gets a bit expensive so I'm considering breaking the law as long as the ferrets will kill them cleanly, I don't really want them to suffer.
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Post by dook2dook on Nov 18, 2011 1:18:10 GMT -5
I don't personally support live feeding but as long as they do kill them cleanly and they don't suffer
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Post by Deleted on Nov 18, 2011 1:24:42 GMT -5
My two females I think would really love it and benefit from it because they are always active and constantly up to trouble. I have one male who I don't think would be able to kill them so well but my other male is my best hunter when it comes to rabbits. I've come across methods of gassing them at home using a soda stream that's interested me so that could work for me if my gang won't kill them cleanly
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Post by Sherry on Nov 18, 2011 10:37:20 GMT -5
Minimum dietary requirements are 3 different proteins, at least one meal of heart a week for the taurine and other elements, one feeding of 2 oz liver, and 2 oz other organ a week(lung, kidney, brain, pancreas, etc). 8-9 meals of consumable bone a week, and fill in the rest with straight muscle meat
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Post by Deleted on Nov 18, 2011 10:48:09 GMT -5
You've got a good start, but the diet does seem deficient in some key areas.
I use chicken, cornish game hen, and turkey necks as bone sources. My kids can usually eat 90% of all the bone in chicken, 100% cornish game hen bone, and about 85% of turkey neck bone.
For boneless sources, we use beef and pork. Ferrets thrive on high fat diets - is there a reason he needs low fat? Fat is their source of energy (like carbs and sugars for humans).
I have a total of 14 feedings a week, one in the AM and one in the PM.
I feed 9 bone in meals a week (about once a day, and twice a day 2x a week). I like to mix up the bone variety. So monday is wings, tuesday is ribs, wednesday is legs, etc.
My kids get 1-2 heart meals a week (we've been feeding 2 more than 1 lately since I found a steady supply of heart). My kids get 2 boneless meals a week, one pork and one beef. If I only feed 1 heart meal, they get an extra beef meal. Then they get a single meal of 50% liver 50% kidney.
So here is a sample of my feeding schedule
Monday: AM Chicken (bone) PM Beef pieces
Tuesday: AM Cornish hen (bone) PM Heart meat
Wednesday: AM Turkey necks (bone) PM Pork pieces
Thursday: AM Chicken (bone) PM Chicken (bone)
Friday: AM Cornish hen (bone) PM Cornish hen (bone)
Saturday: AM Turkey necks PM Heart meat OR Beef meal
Sunday: AM Cornish game hen PM Liver/Kidney
If you want, you can sign up for a mentor that will assist you in balancing your kids diet with what you have available.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 18, 2011 19:37:22 GMT -5
Thanks for the tips! I've been looking at your mentoring program and considered joining it, because my guys are already on meat would I have to do the soup part? What do you mean by muscle meat? Where I get all my pet mince from at the moment I have access to; beef mince, puppy mince, diced beef, beef and veg, roo mince, veal mix, chicken mince, chicken and veg, marrow bows, lamb necks, minced heart. I stay clear of the & veg ones and have tried the puppy, veal, roo and chicken mince. The puppy mince is full of cartilage and gristle with regular mince, it's high in fat as well. The chicken mince is basically a paste and my guys aren't too fond of it. The roo and veal mince is amazing so I try to get those when I can afford it. I'm pretty sure my local supermarket sells organs like livers, kidneys and hearts in their pet food section, I haven't tried my guys on them though so how would I introduce them? I've had some beef kidney i think sitting in the freezer and they don't touch it at all or anything that I put it in... I'm not too sure what other bones they have available but they generally have some beef bones and occasionally lamb necks I think. My mum has given the all clear on a feeder colony as long as I take care of it 100% so now I will be reading as much info as I can on that and trying to work out where to put them I'm part of the ferret society over here and I feel like every member feeds their ferrets kibble and I kind of get looked down on for feeding meat and nothing else... they all think that kibble is a needed dietary thing. Their ferrets don't get a lot of meat I dont think apart from maybe rabbit during hunting season..
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Post by Sherry on Nov 18, 2011 20:56:27 GMT -5
No, you wouldn't have to do the whole soupie thing at all That's for ferrets who don't recognize any meat as food Muscle meat is any whole meat that has no bone. Beef chunks, pork chunks, lamb chunks. Same with chicken, turkey, goat, kangaroo, bison- basically whatever you can get hold of. With your minces, do they have bone, organ and heart included? I'll be honest- the only way I could get mine to eat kidney and liver was to puree it and add a bit of heavy cream, then hand feed once a week. For a year Most aren't quite that stubborn though To get them eating chunked meats, you'd have to sliver them just a bit bigger than the mince and mix it in, and slowly increase the size of the chunks. You can also try offering them bits of straight meat, see if they pick up on it. And I really have to wonder what people think they ate before kibble came along 50 or so years ago
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Post by Deleted on Nov 18, 2011 22:38:36 GMT -5
Well in that case I may as well sign up, no harm done really How do I sign up? I'll do it next week or the week after and that way I have funds to go out and get some hearts, wings etc. At the moment I don't think so because it's human grade mince - The pet mince I usually buy should have some bits and pieces in it but not much. After this mince goes I'll pull out the puppy mince for them which has more chunky bits. Yeah, my guys aren't really interested in liver and kidney at all My guys actually prefer chunks of meat than the mince, that way they can run off and stash it and eat it later. Would using a feeding den stop the stashing everywhere? How would I get them to use one? at the moment they just free range in the kitchen and dining room and hide it anywhere, generally the dogs come in after and clean up the bits they've left. Well according to my society, people fed them bread and milk some people still do, we have a lot of problems with people over here mistreating ferrets, like taking them hunting and having the ferret go missing or not come out of the warren so they just fill the warren in and leave it to die...and hunting in summer where the temperature is very hot and all the snakes will hide in the warrens to get cool
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Post by Deleted on Nov 19, 2011 22:36:34 GMT -5
- is there a reason he needs low fat? Fat is their source of energy (like carbs and sugars for humans). I just noticed this! He needs a lower fat diet than the rest because he has a fatty mass around his lymphnodes that increases in size and stops them from functioning properly and then he gets a liver infection, it's happened twice in as many years and we thought it was a blockage the first time but this time our new vet opened him up and found the source of the problem (we think) His entire liver was inflamed and an orange colour with brown marks. We managed to get rid of the infection using antibiotics but now we're hoping to control it by diet. She wanted him on i/d but the ingredients suggest that it's not the best for him, he was on it for about two weeks whilst he was recovering though. The mass has reduced in size now and he is 100% OK at the moment. I don't want to cut fat out of his diet completely because he is a bit lethargic in general, he sleeps about 1/2 of his out of cage time away... But a lower fat content would be ideal for him (we think! if anyone has any ideas as to keep the mass down I would highly appreciate it!) On the diet side, how many bone meals would you recommend per week? And how much in size for four ferrets? I bought chicken necks today and cut them up and sectioned them into five bags of what I think they would eat of them in one meal... I start work experience tomorrow which im hoping to be paid for so I should be able to go out and get some more bone meal sources soon.
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Post by Sherry on Nov 19, 2011 22:50:30 GMT -5
What they eat can really vary according to gender, activity level, age, general health, etc. My females eat anywhere from 2 oz a day up to 5-6. My males from about 4-7 ounces daily. That's split into two meals a day. For a general guideline, go back in this thread and check out the menu Jackie posted. That will give you an average of consumable bone to muscle, to heart and organ meats.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 19, 2011 23:52:49 GMT -5
Once I convert that, it doesn't seem like that much! Are those weights for each ferret?
will it be ok to follow that sample menu and just change the meats to what I have available in my area? Will any heart meat do or do some animals have higher levels of taurine and other goodies?
Ill hunt around today and tomorrow for places that can supply hearts and other organs as well as bone meats because my local supermarket doesn't always have hearts available
How do i sign up for the mentor program? just post a thread or something else?
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Post by Heather on Nov 20, 2011 1:02:00 GMT -5
Mentoring program: holisticferret60.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=switch&action=display&thread=61That should put you in the right place Definitely, change the meats to whatever you have locally. My guys got emu today ...rat tonight. If you use it as a foundation or guideline it should tell you an approximate amount of bone to meat meals, how often to feed organ meats (and yes you have to feed them ) My guys eat it as a meat/bone/organ soupy...they don't even know they're getting the organs. I have some that will eat organs, but out of 10 that's about 3 or 4...not worth the hassle. Using a feeding den helps, but it doesn't stop the stashing. It just offers them a feeling of security that's all. Some people have found that their wee ones stop stashing all over the place...others not so much.. Any heart meat will do. My brats had chicken hearts and gibblets (gizzards...food worth fighting for ;D), but later this week they're going to get turkey and next week they will probably get emu or bison. The amounts that your ferrets eat depend on your ferrets. My guys are really tucking in right now because they're putting on winter weight. Ferrets who are newly switched will eat you out of house and home. Intact ferrets appear to eat more than alters. And then there's baby ferrets........little furry tummies with teeth (empty tummies I might add ;D ;D). Yes those amounts that Sherry posted are for individuals. I think that covers it ciao
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