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Post by Sherry on Nov 28, 2011 9:57:51 GMT -5
Ok, can you do an update on what they are getting when?
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Post by Deleted on Dec 2, 2011 7:59:26 GMT -5
I haven't been keeping track but yesterday morning they got chicken legs, which lasted them till last night. Last night they got chicken wings and there was still some left this morning so we pulled some pork chunks for tonight.
They are doing great with the bones. They ate 3/4 of a chicken leg bone yesterday. And the chicken wings they have no problem with. I think they just don't like the knobby ends of the bones. That is what they seem to leave.
Sorry I've been horrible with updating. I can only get online on days I have work. They are taking to raw like crazy. I really want to begin increasing the amount of whole prey they get soon. I'm about to do an order of rats and mice for my snakes and I'm going to get an extra bag of mice (50 mice). With the three of them, how many mice should I give them for a single meal?
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Post by Sherry on Dec 2, 2011 9:46:11 GMT -5
Sounds like they've been doing fantastic I think we need to look at balancing their diet now by including heart and liver. For whole prey, it really depends on the size of the mice. You can get normal sized or very large mice. With a normal sized mouse, I estimated 1 for my females, and 2 for my males.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 3, 2011 9:03:03 GMT -5
I can stop by the store tonight and get them some heart. I still have some liver left. I know the store has a heart/gizzard mix for pretty cheap, so I'll stop by and grab that on the way home. I also have some fuzzy mice left over that I can feed them tomorrow morning. I had a bag of fuzzy mice for the snakes and at the bottom of the bag I have a bunch that are broken in half or have heads missing. Not really something I can feed to the snakes (because when they constrict, organs and goo go everywhere) but the ferrets should enjoy them. For things like guinea pigs, quail, and other large whole prey items, how do you portion those out? They are too big for just one meal. Do you cut them up?
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Post by Sherry on Dec 3, 2011 9:38:33 GMT -5
You can. Best to do it while frozen if at all possible, lol! On the other hand- will they "share"? Because with 3 of them, no reason they couldn't feed off a guinea pig or smaller quail for a day or so.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 5, 2011 8:05:10 GMT -5
While the ferrets were out yesterday, I noticed something very exciting! I haven't really picked up Twitch to really get a good look at her back lately. For a while now its been bald as a babies bottom, but last night I noticed her back wasn't as pale so I wanted to get a closer look. I picked her up and sure enough, she's growing her fur back! I'll get pictures tonight and try to post them up tomorrow, but my husband and I are very excited. We are still planning on taking her to the vet soon but we were unable to because of a financial hiccup (we had to replace 3 tires on our car all at once. Darn bald tires) I'm not sure if was the switch to raw or what, but I am so relieved to see that fur coming in again. Last night was beef chunks (the last of them), this morning was a chicken leg. Tonight is liver. We really need to go to the store on Friday to get more meat. We are getting down to the last of it. My planned shopping list for Friday is Ground Turkey Beef Chunks Chicken Wings Chicken Legs Turkey Necks Chicken Hearts and Gizzards Chicken Liver Pork I'm also going to try and locate some different types of organ if I can and perhaps another protein source (animal). As soon as I can I also plan to get them an order of mice (50 per bag) and they will also be getting any rats the snakes decide not to eat. When the holiday season is over and I have some extra money, I plan on adding quail and quinea pig to the menu. I can't wait till I actually own a home, so I can begin breeding whole prey for them and I can switch them over to a fully whole prey diet that I raise myself. I plan on starting a feeder animal business once I'm out of an apartment.
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Post by Sherry on Dec 5, 2011 10:02:45 GMT -5
When you get that, you've got the basis of a raw diet with what you are feeding I need a tentative menu written up to make any tweaks to the balance they need for optimal health. General guideline is 4 days consumable bone, 2 days muscle meats(one meal MUST be heart), one meal liver/organ, the other meal whichever you like
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Post by Deleted on Dec 8, 2011 8:08:02 GMT -5
Here is a menu..
Sunday AM: Chicken Leg Sunday PM: Beef Chunks
Monday AM: Turkey Neck Monday PM: Pork Chunks
Tuesday AM: Chicken Wing Tuesday PM: Turkey Neck
Wednesday AM: Ground Turkey Wednesday PM: Chicken Gizzards and Hearts
Thursday AM: Chicken Leg Thursday PM: Beef Chunks
Friday AM: Chicken Liver/Organ Friday PM: Chicken Wing
Saturday AM: Beef Chunks Saturday PM: Chicken Leg
And I would vary it up some with throwing in some rats or mice 1-2x a week. Oh and I had a question about fish. I was told that fish shouldn't be given often because of high mercury content and all that. My mother gave us some swai (I've never heard of it before, but my sister says its some kind of catfish). We don't eat catfish so I was wondering if this would be safe to give to the ferrets as an occasional meal?
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Post by Sherry on Dec 8, 2011 10:22:43 GMT -5
Yes, you can give fish, but I'd do once a week at the very most. Smaller fresh water fish are better, simply because of the toxin build ups in them. Specifically mercury. With your menu, you def. need more edible bone in there. Do they eat the entire leg bone? Because otherwise, you'll need at least 2 more edible bone to replace muscle meat meals. Also, can you get straight heart for one of the muscle meat meals? They need the taurine from it. Otherwise, pick up a taurine supplement and give a 500g capsule sprinkled daily on the food, along with what heart you are able to give.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 9, 2011 8:53:17 GMT -5
I can try and find heart just by itself. I know I can easily find chicken heart in a package with gizzards and I can just pick out the hearts. I'll write up a new menu this weekend. I'll be off work for the weekend and will not be able to update until Monday.
They don't eat the whole bone . They've been eating up to the knobby end and stopping, but so far they are eating most of it. I'll tweak the menu to include more bone. Would you consider cornish game hen to be the same as chicken or is it considered a different protein source?
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Post by Sherry on Dec 9, 2011 11:34:45 GMT -5
It's a different protein, and most of the bone is edible You can also take a cleaver or hammer to the thigh/leg bone and really break it up. That's the only way mine will eat it. And either the heart or the supplement is essential for them
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Post by Deleted on Dec 12, 2011 7:58:21 GMT -5
I went shopping yesterday and got everything but turkey necks on my list. Apparently this time of year they are harder for the stores to order. I'm heading to an asian market today after work to see what I can find. Last night they got a chicken wing and a chicken heart. Funny about the chicken heart. While I did get a pack of hearts, this particular heart was actually found in the chicken liver container. I was portioning out the liver and came across the heart. I found it quite odd that it would be there. I also got two cornish game hens. As soon as I have more portion size containers, I'm going to chop them up. You should see Twitch's back. This picture was taken several days ago but her back is even better looking now. I really do wonder what caused the fur loss in the first place. I'll get updated pictures since her back is almost back to normal.
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Post by Sherry on Dec 12, 2011 10:50:41 GMT -5
She may have just been shedding. Tis the season and all that ;D So how did they do with the wing?
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Post by Deleted on Dec 13, 2011 7:52:30 GMT -5
They gobbled up the heart, but hardly touched the wing. I'm going to dig out my calcium powder (its buried in all of my reptile supplies) and start adding a bit of that to their meat since they don't seem as interested in bones as they should. I didn't crush up the wing since they had been doing relatively well with the leg bones (eating all but the knobby end)
I went to the asian market last night and took down a list of the things they have there. I found goat meat (but it's pretty expensive at about $5 a lb and they only sell large chunks). They have duck wings, chicken feet, pork feet, pork tongue. For organs, its all pork, but does that matter? They had stomach, kidney, and intestines (2 different sizes). I also saw Tripe, liver, and heart. They also had packages of quail but it was very expensive so I figure I'll just get whole quail from the same place I get my mice and rats from.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 16, 2011 7:47:45 GMT -5
Well I gave them another wing yesterday and they gobbled it up. There was nothing left of it when I went to feed them last night. So they are getting the hang of bones finally.
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