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Post by jadewolf on Oct 26, 2011 19:22:15 GMT -5
Ground pork all day today, everyone's happy as clams. Snorri and Dominique just have a dish of it they eat straight. I do break it up into smaller chunks because if it's in one mass, Snorri will try to carry the whole thing off and stash it, then forget it. I don't even see how he forgets it when he has to walk over it to play, but he does.
Will refused to eat pork with a few drops of tone, but ate a lot when mixed with a bit of soup. Minnie somehow licked the tone off the ground pork! I swear she clenches her teeth, darts her tongue out to lick, and scrapes off any pork she accidentally picked up with her teeth as she brings her tongue back in! I got a few shreds into her using a spoon, she always has to run off to chew in private and then won't come back for more. But still better than chicken!
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Post by Sherry on Oct 26, 2011 19:33:04 GMT -5
I swear she clenches her teeth, darts her tongue out to lick, and scrapes off any pork she accidentally picked up with her teeth as she brings her tongue back in! And yes, I know exactly what you mean ;D Sorry- love the description! Snorri and Dom are doing really well. Keep them with the pork for another couple of days, then try them with another meat. Will does really well with it in soup, so just give it to him that way. But start watering down the soup little bit by little bit so he doesn't notice quite as quickly. Hopefully at some point, it will just be moistened with some water. Out of curiosity, has Minnie ever used a feeding den? All you have to do is take an old pop can box and use that. Why not try putting a dish of her favourite sort of soupie in there, and then put her in. See if she'll eat it in there. If she does- fantastic! You may have to try it a few times, and what you may wind up doing at first is having her in the box, and offering the soup while she's in there. When I take Boris to work with me(he's IBD and frequently on meds during the day), that's almost the only way he'll take his pureed lamb. He stays in the carrier, with only his head peeking out, and there I am on the floor holding a dish and a spoon up to him Spoiled much? ;D
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Post by jadewolf on Oct 26, 2011 21:45:39 GMT -5
Good idea, I will try putting her in the feeding den. Tonight she actually did eat about twice as much pork with half the struggle, but that's still nothing compared to an actual meal.
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Post by Sherry on Oct 26, 2011 23:03:36 GMT -5
Let me know how she does with it
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Post by jadewolf on Oct 27, 2011 22:32:56 GMT -5
The feeding den definately makes a difference. I put the bowl just outside it, and from that angle I can also see that she is in fact ingesting some pork. She eats more if I hold up a spoonful, and she still eats less than a quarter what the boys do, but it's definately better. This AM I took away the kibble for about 4 hours and offered her pork soup twice. Both times she ate a bit. As soon as I put the kibble back she dove into it, starving.
Will's eating good amounts of pork in soup like before, but he's also started sniffing Snorri and Dominique's chunks of pork, like, "could this be food? I dunno..." Snorri and Dom are eating strips, only problem is I need to monitor the stashing closely or else I think they ate it all and give them more, when actually they strewed it about the feeding den and behind the sofa. I'm trying to move them up gradually to pieces big enough to clip in the feeding den.
And I want to make sure I say thank you for all the help you're giving and your patience!
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Post by Sherry on Oct 27, 2011 22:58:23 GMT -5
Thanks- that's what we're here for I'm glad they are doing better, and that Minnie likes the den as for amounts, a couple of my girls only eat two ounces a day! Boys are usually always piggies ;D Keep removing her kibble and offering it to her like you did. Sooner or later she'll start filling up on it. One more experiment with her. When you give her the kibble back, measure what you put in, then again when she's finished. She may indeed be "diving into it, but I'm curious as to how much she's actually eating.
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Post by jadewolf on Oct 30, 2011 21:00:50 GMT -5
Wow, it's been 3 days? Let's see, they ate all my pork supply about 1.5 days ago, so we moved on to beef. They can really pack it away! Minnie kept being willing to eat a tiny bit of pork in soup in her den, but not anything measurable. Everyone else ate the same as usual. With beef, I blended some beef into the kibble soup, to see if Minnie would eat that any easier than mince in soup. Nope, if anything she liked it less. And she's getting less obliging about the feeding den- she'll grab a bit of beef and fight and thrash to go eat it on the paper by the litterbox, no matter how I try to guide her or redirect to the feeding den. I'm going to try a bigger one, see if that helps. Or maybe put the feeding den on top of the spot she prefers. Right now she's getting the soup with beef blended in, with minced beef mixed in, and sprinkled with the freeze dried beef from Wysong that she adores. The sprinkles are the only way I can even get her to look at it. I haven't been up or home early enough to take out the kibble much before soup time, so she hasn't had that encouragement and I haven't measured her kibble intake. Will's on the same mix of blended, soup, and beef. He started out not wild about it but tonight ate a lot, almost as much as he was eating of pork. He is eating it in my lap or with me hovering and offering spoonfuls. I think he backslid with the new taste, but now that he's okay with it I'll give him a day or so then start backing off to get him to eat it without me helping. Snorri may or may not have eaten much beef before tonight- I noticed today how much Dominique was packing away, and it's possible he ate all the beef for both of them! Snorri stashes it but might not have eaten more than a few pieces. Tonight I sat down with him and gave him small two-bite strips with Wysong beef crumbled over, and he ate 8 pieces or so, then stashed the last 2 and was cut off. But I think he now has the idea that beef is food. Dominique is a champion. He is chowing down on the stew beef strips, about .5" x .5" x 2". It's pretty chewy, but he will not be deterred! I have a great video of him chewing, and shaking it to kill it, and stepping on it to hold it down while he gnaws. I'll post in the raw pics thread as soon as I get it off my camera.
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Post by jadewolf on Nov 1, 2011 22:50:47 GMT -5
I'm having a "sick of doing things!" day. Or week. There's always something that needs doing! Will still has unknown stomach trouble and is on a half dose of pred to try to see if it's the start of an ulcer that will heal with less pred. So now I'm watching and testing his BG to make sure he's okay. It just occurred to me that his stomach upset could be due to the mixing of kibble and raw. What are the usual poor reactions?
Minnie still eats 3 bites and bolts, although at least she'll carry them to her new bigger feeding den.
Snorri and Dominique still eating tons of beef.
I'm pretty frustrated with Will's illness and Minnie's pigheadedness, especially since right now my husband is going through something rough and is incredibly needy, and I'm trying to build my massage business, which means marketing, which totally drains me. Ugh.
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Post by Sherry on Nov 1, 2011 22:59:34 GMT -5
I'm so sorry! I thought I'd responded to this! I must have gotten distracted and just told hubby to close the window out for me Okay, first with Will. The lower dose of pred will not help an incipient ulcer at all. For that he'll need carafate at the very least. How is his problem presenting? Diarrhea, not wanting to eat, tooth grinding? With Minnie, let her take it to the den and eat. What size pieces is she getting that she's carrying off? And great for Snorri and Dom Let's try them with some heart now and see how they do.
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Post by jadewolf on Nov 2, 2011 10:37:38 GMT -5
Will is on carafate, has been for a month. That's part of my frustration, I want to be able to leave for more than 8 hours without thinking about his poor tummy hurting. His stool is normal. When he was off the carafate he was grinding his teeth after he ate, poor appetite, being very clingy and floppy, and licking his lower abdomen so much that he pulled the hair out. On carafate, we're down to occasional grinding for a few seconds maybe every other day, and possibly a little belly licking, but it might just be normal levels and I'm hyper-vigilant. The vet would like to do the full ulcer course with metronidazole and the other 2 meds I forget just now, and I would really not like to do that. He was just on metro in July, and this problem started in mid Sept. To placate me, the vet suggested halving his pred and seeing if without so much of the steroids making him susceptible, he'd be able to heal with just the carafate. I'm a little more relaxed now that I have 2 blood glucoses on him with the half dose. They're low, but not terrible, and he's been behaving fine, playing and so on.
Minnie. Ugh, Minnie. I am letting her take it to the den, and sometimes it's not even a big scene to then get her back for a second piece. She certainly doesn't come back on her own, she may or may not be okay with me getting her and bringing her back to the bowl. It seems the closer the bowl is to the den, the faster she runs away after coming out of the den. 2-3 feet away seems better.
The pieces are as small as I could mince them with my not terribly sharp knife, about a half to quarter of a pinky fingernail and very thin. She eats the piece she chews off, dropping more than half of the meat on the floor and leaving it when she runs off. Snorri loves it, though! Meat's good, but meat coated in soup is way better, in his opinion.
Depending on her mood when I come in, she might even take a piece of meat herself from the bowl with soup, but often I need to offer her a spoonful, and sometimes I need to hold her under her chest behind her legs and offer a piece on a finger.
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Post by Sherry on Nov 2, 2011 11:34:39 GMT -5
For now with Minnie, just keep doing what you can. I'd not push her at all yet, or she'll balk big time. She'll move ahead at her own pace. Se are just like that. Once the other three are fully raw she won't have a lot of choice!
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Post by jadewolf on Nov 4, 2011 22:03:09 GMT -5
Before you posted about the heart, I'd defrosted some chicken, so I've been working my way through that before I do the heart, because I didn't want to re-freeze it and lose more nutrients. I think the boys forgot that chicken is food, the first 24 hours they kept stashing it then eating kibble. Finally I took away the kibble and crumbled Wysong freezedried over the chicken, and they remembered it's food.
Minnie's still on soup with beef blended in, but my food processor is kind of dull, so it's more like partially blended and partially small chunks. She inhales it, even the bits of meat, so I'm pretty happy.
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Post by Sherry on Nov 5, 2011 0:12:52 GMT -5
That's fine about the heart later, when the chicken's finished. And congrats to Minnie! Wow! Maybe you won't have to wait with her switch after all ;D why not try adding a few hand cut slivers to her meal, see how she does with it. Make them a wee bit Bigger than what your blender churns out.
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Post by jadewolf on Nov 9, 2011 17:28:08 GMT -5
We've been feeding heart for about a day and a half. I started with medium strips, about 1/4in by 1/8in by 1in. Dominique chowed down, Snorri eventually remembered heart is food. I made the strips more like 2 inches long, same diameter, and they kept eating it. Today midday I tried cutting strips into a chunk, leaving one end in a big chunk, like 2 in by 1.5 in, and attaching it to the feeding den with a shower curtain clip. An hour later I hear a rattling, and when I go to investigate they'd pulled the hunk off the ring and hid it. They ate some chunks off, I'd say one good meal's worth. I just now fished it out from behind the sofa and put it in their dish, where both of them fell on it and ate about half of it. Really the only problems with the two of them right now are their aversion to swallowing bone (I find the shards all over the room after a bone meal) and Snorri's insistence on stashing things then refusing to acknowledge they are food, since they aren't in his dish.
I haven't got a good way to get pieces of the size you describe for Minnie- the smallest I can cut them is a fair bit larger than the blended bits. I'm trying, though. I think I finally got the heart tiny enough, she's eaten a half tsp or so of the heart in soup last night and this morning. And she still isn't thrashing and running away. She still forgets she likes it, and has to be offered a spoonful, like you've described Boris. But it's much better than she was. And apparently knowing the feeding den is there is enough- she never runs off to it with shreds any more. Though she might if I ever get her to eat bigger pieces.
I've temporarily stopped giving Will meat. I want to get his stomach feeling good. Once the vet clears him to go off carafate, if he's doing well with that for a week or so, then I can try the meat again and have a better idea if the kibble and meat mix was causing any of his stomach problems. He hasn't forgotten, though- he always comes around to investigate Snorri and Dominique's dish. I gave them an egg, and Will actually ate some along with Snorri and Dominique. Minnie is too pretty a princess to get her face all dirty with egg, apparently.
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Post by Sherry on Nov 10, 2011 10:36:50 GMT -5
Have you tried a feeding den for Snorri? I can't remember. It does take a while to train them to use it, though. You have to constantly keep redirecting, but they get it sooner or later. For the bone, there will be shards as they can't/won't eat all of it. Something you CAN try is giving them either chicken necks or wings for two or three days straight. If it's wings, segment, cut between the bones for the middle half, and smash up the larger drumette bone. Feed that every meal time for those days. Bone and organ meats are the two big ones with switching ferrets. Bone is actually the reason I now feed commercial raw in the mornings. Our Lucrezia is a very lazy bone eater, and will eat the meat off if she has half a chance. As it is, I still find some shards from the larger bone bits in the commercial raw Minnie is making progress, believe it or not Simply not fighting it is a major step!!! She's doing so well. Poor Will I hate to say it, but since he's on pred permanently because of his insulinoma, he should likely stay on carafate as well, as a preventative.
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