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Post by Deleted on Dec 5, 2011 14:48:14 GMT -5
Menu: (AM/PM):
Monday: chicken 4.3oz/pork 6.2oz Tuesday: chicken 11oz Wednesday: beef 5.3oz/chicken 5oz Thursday: hearts 4oz/chicken 6.2oz Friday: liver 6oz/kidneys 6oz Saturday: chicken 5oz/pork 6oz Sunday: hen 12oz
i havent taken their weights yet, but i will when they wake up.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 6, 2011 2:40:56 GMT -5
The menu looks good Let me know the weights when you have them For this upcoming week: work on getting them better at eating the kidney and liver. If you have to make the chunks slightly smaller to get them to eat it better, then there's no shame in that Let's work on getting those kidney and liver meals combined into the same meal. Then with the other meal you have some freedom. If you feed mostly chicken wings during the week (lots of bone) then I would make that meal a muscle meat meal (so 8 bone-in, 4 muscle meat meals) and if you feed more cut-up chicken bones (more meat, less bone) then I would do it as a bone-in meal (9 bone-in, 3 muscle meat). So it all depends on the bone contents of the bone-in meals. If you get a lot of bone, then you really only need 8. If you dont, then that extra meal helps ensure they get enough calcium. Make sense? Your guys are doing pretty awesome with the actual switching part, and once they are eating liver and kidney with no problem, they will be good to go. However, as your mentor, I also have to make sure YOU have learned all you need to learn from this switch. So that if and when you need to change your menu around a bit from the current one (which is a correct menu you will be able to do it in a way that ensures balance is maintained As for that extra protein, Duck is a no-go, you aren't a fan of turkey, and lamb is too pricey sooooo my only other recommendation for you would be to check out an Asian market IF you have one in your area. They will have things like Quail (great protein!), Cheap duck parts (possibly necks or feet - which are great bone-in meats), and possibly some other proteins I haven't thought of. If not, and you can't find any other good proteins in your area, then you can definitely stay at 4 proteins (beef, pork, chicken, cornish hen) I just want to make sure you have all the TOOLS neccessary to keep your guys healthy and happy on a raw diet for the rest of their lives and protein flexibility (if they get sick of one, one is on sale, you can't find one anymore) is an excellent tool to have Anywho, that's all I have to say for now, let me know if you have any other questions I await your weights ;D
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Post by Deleted on Dec 6, 2011 8:31:07 GMT -5
Baby Leg - 2.28 lbs - Large chunks, normal stools, playful but he has been really fixated on certain things lately and its hard to keep his attention from them and get him to play.
Cici - 2.04 lbs - Large chunks, normal stools, very playful and sweet like usual.
Dids - 2.60 lbs - Large chunks, normal stools, very very very playful this week ( he has been wearing out the younger 1 year olds all week)
I was going to feed them some kidney tomorrow (wednesday), liver friday, the rest of kidney sunday.
I feel like giving them 12oz of kidney/liver at once is so much food. They barely eat 10-11oz between the three of them in a whole day.
We are going to try another turkey neck in a few days, thursday i think. We love the idea of getting them used to eating as any different things as possible, for the exact reasons you mentioned. Quail might be a good idea, forget about alot of those small birds ;D
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Post by Deleted on Dec 7, 2011 14:11:05 GMT -5
Thanks looks good! I'm so glad to hear Dids has been so youthful lately. I feel like raw really gives these older guys a second chance at life . What has baby legs been fixated on? There's a whole thread on here about ferrets' "preciouses" you should check it out. It's quite common for the little monkeys to be obsessed with things . Your best bet is to just remove those items and hopefully he'll go back to playing. You can definitely split the organ up over the week, just make sure you feed it before other meals instead of replacing the meals otherwise you will throw the bone-meat balance off. So if you keep the one organ meal and feed them say 8-10oz kidney/liver that meal, then feed the rest before other meals throughout the rest of the week. You just don't want anymore than 1 whole meal dedicated to organs per week is all. Let me know how the turkey neck goes Quail are awesome little birds. They are my favorite to feed . They can eat every bone in them (even the legs are so tiny) and they usually include a really tiny heart and kidney so they get a bit of extra goodies too. They can be a bit pricey but I've found them in packs of 10 or so for only $10 so that's so bad. Plus with the holiday season, they should be easier to track down
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Post by Deleted on Dec 7, 2011 17:14:22 GMT -5
Yeah Dids has completely changed for the better. We got him in february in terrible shape but got him off the cat food to zupreem then our desire to enrich his life led to another ferret, then another, then to enrich all the lives went to raw feeding. I couldn't be happier! We are such proud ferrents
Baby Legs is being more bad than obsessed. The is constantly trying to get through places he shouldn't. The couch thing is still happening, he gets on the couch and crawls through a small hole in the couch to get underneath it, inside the lining. In order to get him out we have to pull the staples from the lining, get him out, then restaple it. I'm sure its pretty typical behavior but just annoying. We scruff and drag, have a decent size cat carrier to use for time-outs but he is just such a persistent boy. We try to keep him busy as much as possible but sometimes he wants nothing to do with us, toys or the other two. This isn't a TERRIBLE problem just something we have been dealing with, not sure if its relevant but i figure it was behavior related.
We have been feeding the kidney last two weeks exactly how you described, before meals. We are going to feed 3oz lamb kidney tonight in fact.
Oh wow the quail sounds like a really good idea, we will have to look more into that as well.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 7, 2011 23:51:47 GMT -5
Sounds perfect with the organ As for baby legs, your best bet is to find a way to block that hole into the couch off completely... Or get a new more ferret proof couch. Or block off the ferret's access to the room with the couch. If you take some pictures of it and post it in a separate thread, I'm sure some others can make some recommendations for blocking it off. My ferrets only have free roam in one ferret proof room so I have no experience with ferret proofing couches, sorry!
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Post by Deleted on Dec 12, 2011 8:37:17 GMT -5
Dids - 2.61lbs - very playful, normal poops, large chunks.
Baby Legs - 2.32lbs - playful, very mischievous, normal stools, large chunks.
Cici - 2.02lbs - very playful, normal stools, large chunks.
Menu: (AM/PM):
Monday: chicken 4.5oz/pork 4.4oz Tuesday: chicken 10oz Wednesday: pork 4.8oz/chicken 5oz Thursday: hearts 4oz/chicken 5.1oz Friday: liver 6oz/kidneys 3oz Saturday: chicken 5.1oz/beef 4.8oz Sunday: hen 9oz
kidney isnt going very well, but hearts and livers are going great, they ate practically everything.
were thinking of getting some brains or something else,
we went out yesterday to look for quail and there was nothing whole- so that would have to be ordered. pheasant was another one we saw the might be good. still looking for organs.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 12, 2011 15:17:20 GMT -5
The menu looks good As for the kidney, it sounds like they just aren't a huge fan of it.. what kind of kidney are you using again? I believe you said lamb before. Lamb is a very strong tasting protein so I would recommend trying kidney from a different protein source. You should be able to find Pork kidney quite easily (I've found it at pretty much all of the grocery stores I've been too), mine really like Pork kidney. If not, beef kidney is the next easiet to find. It will have a strong taste also, but they might end up prefering. Otherwise, if you are able to find another source of organ, then you only need to give them kidney as half their "other organ". So you will need to still feed 3oz kidney per week because it's an important organ, but for the other 3oz you can do brain, or spleen is another good one (pork spleen). Personally I haven't seen any other organs around here, but you might be able to find others. The other thing you can do is go to a PET health food store. Do you have any of those in your area? They sell frozen raw. They should carry commercial raw patties (look like hamburgers) and there is usually one called an "offal" patty. This is basically an organ patty and contains brain, liver, kidney, spleen, tongue, you name it. The only ones I've found here are beef and my ferrets hated it but they also dont really like beef, so if yours eat their beef well, they will probably like it. Just as a heads up - I have a really important final exam tomorrow so I'm putting my computer and phone away so as not to get distracted. So I probably won't have a chance to pop back in until Tuesday night / Wednesday morning. So no need to update me until then. However if you have another organ question, just post it here today and I will quickly check the thread before bed tonight and reply
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Post by Deleted on Dec 15, 2011 3:19:30 GMT -5
And I'm back Exams are done, let the insane Christmas shopping commence ;D How are the organs going this week?
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Post by Deleted on Dec 15, 2011 8:10:48 GMT -5
yes lamb kidney, we gave them some more yesterday and it didn't go well. It was our last one so we are focusing on something different at this time. Probably pork kidney. I don't know about the pet health food store, haven't looked into that yet. Good idea, i'm going to google it right now. Other than this last organ and protein source everything is going well. We have been looking at quail and pheasant but can't find any whole quail and the pheasant is around $12/lbs which i feel is high. I love pheasant, always have, but at $12/lb i wanna eat it Hearts today and livers tomorrow but at this point i'm not really worried about these days like i used to be. How did your exams go? I think i got a C in my Calculus 1 final, kinda upset about that.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 16, 2011 2:35:25 GMT -5
Ahh well that would probably explain it then. Lamb is such a finicky protein like that. Pork is probably a good idea. ;D Yes that it is quite expensive, I would want to eat it too. Let me know if you find a good pet health food store. The one's we have here (Tailblazers) carry quail, duck necks, turkey necks, even things like emu and rabbit for decent prices. So if you can find a similar place, that will probably be a more... financially sound option ;D That is awesome, means your guys are getting to be experts when you no longer worry about feeding heart and liver I only had one exam and it went quite well I am actually switching my major to psychology so the next year is going to be crazy trying to catch up so I can graduate after next year, but I'm excited, psych is really fun Sorry to hear about your calculus Math is so hard. I was always good enough at memorizing it to pass, but I really don't enjoy it But you know what they say... "Degrees with C's" ;D No one knows what grades you got once you graduate. A Person with C's gets the same degree as a person's with A's. At least that's my jaded, I've been doing this for four years of my life - university student view ;D
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Post by Deleted on Dec 17, 2011 11:25:05 GMT -5
well we will take a break on the lamb and we got some veal brain and tried that but no joy. we are going to continue to worrk on this for the next two weeks. no pork kidneys around but there is ahealth food store that has 2.3lbs of organ for $8 so we are going there tomorrow. psch sounds cool but better you than me
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Post by Deleted on Dec 17, 2011 12:59:56 GMT -5
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Post by Deleted on Dec 17, 2011 21:01:43 GMT -5
That looks good to me Just see if you kind find out exactly what % of it is liver, what % is kidney and what % is heart. They should know or be able to ask the manufacturer's. It will be important to know to help me figure out how much you should be feeding
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Post by Deleted on Dec 19, 2011 19:12:30 GMT -5
Cici - 2.1 lbs - playful, normal stools, large chunks.
Dids - 2.71 lbs - playful, normal stools, large chunks.
Baby Legs - 2.32 lbs - playful, normal stools, large chunks.
Menu: (AM/PM):
Monday: chicken 4.9oz/pork 4.6oz Tuesday: chicken 9.6oz Wednesday: pork 4.5oz/chicken 5oz Thursday: hearts 4.5oz/chicken 4.8oz Friday: liver 6oz/beef 4.6oz Saturday: chicken 5oz/beef 4.8oz Sunday: hen 9.3oz
Everything is going very well. It has been a tad colder lately and the fuzzies have been sleeping a little more the last three or four days.
We talked with the store owner and she didn't know what % was heart/liver/kidney .. I will call but im just going to keep on the look out for other stuff. I can't believe how hard it can be to find stuff like animal organs.
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