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Post by Deleted on Apr 2, 2012 22:58:37 GMT -5
Looks good to me! Nate will poop a lot more because he is just going on the raw and it takes a good month or so for the poop levels to drop off Sooo glad Charlotte's poops are looking better! Hopefully no more hairballs! Menu looks good. Yes that is 8 meals but because they are getting other stuff before the meals, I would up it to 9 bone-in meals this week. That should help everyone's poops out. And if Charlotte's are looking good you can back off on the egg shell / bone meal (if you are still doing it) and you can back off on the squash a bit too. They should really only get 1/2 tsp each of squash per day. Everything is looking great though! So let's get them eating some more organs!! You can try disguising the organ soup in some chicken soup and see if that works
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Post by cierva4 on Apr 5, 2012 11:43:21 GMT -5
Hiya! Just a quick check-in. Things are going well this week. I've been squeezing a tiny bit of organ soup (maybe 1tsp each) in every other day just to get them used to the taste. I'm going to give them real meals of organ soup this weekend. I portioned it out for the week to make sure they're not getting too much, too.
Nate's poops looked a little white-ish yesterday, and kinda dry. Is this from too much bone? I gave him more meaty pieces of bone last night and this morning he looked a bit more normal.
Charlotte's doing great!
Wheatley choked on a piece of bone yesterday and vomited a little. He seemed fine after and had some water and went back to eating. Is this something I should worry about? As far as I can tell it happened maybe once before, but I wasn't there and it was near the litterbox, so I thought someone just missed. But it was white both times.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 5, 2012 13:13:06 GMT -5
That is great to hear let me know how that organ meals go. Yes it sounds like Wheatley is getting a bit too much bone. Maybe cut him Back to 8 meals a week. Because he eats it so well, he's probably getting more than the others. Choking does happen sometimes. It actually happens MORE when they are kibble though. My guys have choked a bit before and puked. The puked is more a result of them coughing / freaking themselves out. Don't worry too much, it's pretty rare. But here's some info on the ferret Heimlech and choking protocols. You probably won't ever have to use it but knowing it might ease your mind a bit holisticferret60.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=healthinfo&action=display&thread=104
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Post by cierva4 on Apr 8, 2012 19:09:55 GMT -5
Hey there-- Just a heads up that I'll probably be on the forums a little less during the week. I'll still do my weekly post tomorrow and check in regularly, but I'm training someone at work now, so my daytime forum fun has been cut for the next couple of weeks. Things are going well. I'm still playing with whether I want to alternate bone/meat days or per meal, because it seems like when I give Nate two bone meals in a row his poops get a little too white and dry for my liking. You were so right about nasty organ poops too. That said, they all ate the soup really well. Charlotte and Wheatley only had about (maybe) a teaspoon left between them, and Nate pretty much cleaned the bowl. It was way easier to get them to eat it than I expected. I could tell no one was particularly happy about it, but everyone ate!
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Post by Deleted on Apr 9, 2012 12:31:31 GMT -5
Hey, No worries, once a week is fine at this point during the switch anyways. Sounds like they did really well with the organ soup. With Nate, it sounds to me like you should alternate. There's not enough muscle meat meals in the week to do every second meal, but maybe just avoid feeding two super boney meals in a row. Instead go one very boney meal followed one muscle meat or less boney meal. Now at this point, it's up to you what happens next. Are you happy with the variety of proteins they have currently? Are you happy with them eating the organ soup or would you prefer they eat whole organs (some ferrets never will)? If you are happy with things as are, the next step would be to give me a sample menu after this week. So this week, make sure they are eating the organs well still, figure out how you would like to organize the menu, and then post it at some point during the week for review. Just make sure you have 8-9 bone in meals 3-4 muscle meat 1 heart And enough organs to equal 1 full meal
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Post by cierva4 on Apr 10, 2012 7:43:46 GMT -5
Blah I suck. Okay, here goes. Charlotte Weight: 1 lb 12.5oz Poops: so much better, looking like Wheatley's mostly, and she's been eating much more bone from what I can tell. Activity Level: slightly higher than before, if it's possible. Wheatley Weight: 2lb 8.5oz Poops: basically what I've come to expect from bone/meatless/organ meals now. Activity Level: I think he actually dipped a little this past week. He's still active and alert, he just curls up to nap a bit sooner. Nathan Weight: he's squiggly, but the scale hovered around 2lb 2oz Poops: still tons of it. I started cutting his bone meals with just 2-3 medium chunks of boneless, and he's not looking so white and dry. Activity Level: ridiculous. He manages to tire both me and Josh and keep going hard after that... Menu (they got about 1/2tsp pumpkin/squash each every night and about 1tsp of EVOO Tues, Thurs and Sat) Monday: chicken wing, a little taste of organ soup (AM)/ wing (PM) Tuesday: Thigh meat, a little organ soup (AM) / Pork (PM) Wednesday: wing (AM and PM) Thursday: hen meat and heart (AM and PM) (Nate also got a cube of chicken soup over night) Friday: hen bones (AM) / pork and heart (PM) Saturday: organ soup (AM) / hen bones (and a chicken foot for Nate) (PM) Sunday: mix of hen bones and wing (AM and PM) I split the heart over 2 days since they don't seem interested if it's not mixed with something else. I do want to try the quail next week, and give beef another try this week (didn't have any left this past week). I'm fine with the organ soup, but definitely not fine with what gets left behind. blech.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 10, 2012 12:51:20 GMT -5
Looks good I think you've figured out the right balance of bone which is great. keeping the organ as soup sounds good to me. Sadly the icky poop is unavoidable. So if you can get all of their weekly organ amount in 1 day, then you'll only have to deal with that poop for one day. Sounds good on the beef and the quail. Let me know how they go. You can try them both this week though. No need to space it out that much. Splitting the heart up is just fine too, however they will take it. Otherwise everything is going great
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Post by cierva4 on Apr 13, 2012 7:36:32 GMT -5
Just a quick check in! Nate likes beef (but I think we already knew that). Charlotte and Wheatley did nibble on it last night, but there was still a good amount left this morning. I think I'm going to try a different cut of beef and see if they like it any better, since I need to get more this weekend anyway. :-) And I should finally be able to get the little quails from the asian market tomorrow, I'll try to get those in on Sunday.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 13, 2012 16:42:10 GMT -5
Sounds good. They can be pretty picky about beef cuts from my experience. I actually started with veal and then worked my guys up to beef. They definitely seem to prefer the more expensive cuts of beef too ( go figure right ) so try out some different ones for sure. Sounds good on the quail too, mine adore it! The little bones are great too cause they are very edible. Let me know how that all goes
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Post by cierva4 on Apr 16, 2012 7:27:53 GMT -5
Hi! Quail went really really well! At first they did their usual WTFMOM? but everyone ended up eating a decent amount of it, so I gave them a full meal of it last night. (Nate ate all of his, of course.) Nate eats beef without problem. Charlotte and Wheatley will pick at it, but they never finish what's there. I'm going to keep trying on that front. I'm also still giving Nate meatier pieces of bone or a few boneless pieces on the second bone meal because his poops still get white and dry if I don't. Menu (still doing EVOO about every other day, and a little bit of pumpkin/squash every night.) Monday- hen bones (AM and PM), a little bit of heart (PM) Tuesday- pork (AM) chicken thigh (PM) Wednesday- wings (AM and PM) Thursday- chicken thigh (AM), pork and heart, with a little bit of beef (PM) Friday- hen bones, and Nate got part of a chicken foot (AM) wings (PM) Saturday- organ soup (AM), the rest of the organ soup and hen bones (PM) Sunday- quail bones and chicken thigh (AM), quail (PM) Charlotte Weight: 1lb 13oz Poops: good. She's been getting a little extra pumpkin to keep her steady, too. Activity level: everyone dropped a little with the rising temperatures this week (surprisingly getting up to 70s so soon!) but I put my AC in the window this weekend and gave them a water pan to play in and they all perked back up. Wheatley Weight: 2lb 8oz Poops: standard meat/bone/organ. He's sort of the benchmark for the other two. Activity Level: see Charlotte's Nathan Drake Weight: 2lb 6oz (soooo close to beating Wheatley out, and he's barely 4 months old!) Poops: He might be going slightly less than he was, but it's hard to tell. There's still a lot, and I'm putting him through bootcamp now. Activity Level: see Charlotte's, but assume when I say dropped off that it means he speedbumped once/hour.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 16, 2012 11:39:10 GMT -5
Thanks for the up-date - everything is looking really good! The beef is something that will just take time. If they really aren't coming around to it, you can always not feed it for a while and try again later. Sometimes they just don't have a taste for it but I found that with my ferrets, eventually they did. The organ soup is going well? They are each eating all of it and getting their weekly intake? Otherwise, everything looks nicely balanced for all of them and your keeping everyone's poops in check so that looks great
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Post by Deleted on Apr 16, 2012 11:40:50 GMT -5
One thing I forgot, you will need more heart than that in the diet. Should be equivalent to one full meal, so even if you feed it for half a meal for 2 meals that's fine, just making sure they each get at least a meal's equivalent into them - more is better though.
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Post by cierva4 on Apr 16, 2012 20:30:19 GMT -5
The organ is going really well. I didn't give their entire weekly portion in the one meal because I was worried it would go bad before they had a chance to eat it all. For both meals there was just a few smudges left in the bowl really, maybe a little more than a teaspoon total for everyone overall. I also found that Wheatley really likes to eat the soup when it's still in mostly-frozen cube form. I added some water to soften and he just licked away. ;D I am giving a full weeks worth of heart over both days, but I was thinking about throwing a few more in there just for good measure. I can get the hearts really cheap and it's good for them. I'll up the amounts this week to be sure. I might give the beef a rest for a little bit. They've certainly got enough proteins for now in the meantime.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 16, 2012 21:02:38 GMT -5
Perfect that sounds fantastic with the organ. You can definitely space it out like that Okay that's awesome with the hearts - I just wasn't sure on the amounts but throwing more in for good measure is always smart too. I would definitely say they are good for variety as well
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Post by Heather on Apr 16, 2012 22:32:15 GMT -5
Carpetsharks, tells me you're ready to graduate . I think so too... Congratulations You've graduated and you're ready to walk this path alone, now. You have the foundation to help you feed your fuzzes in a more natural and healthy manner. Please remember that your learning never stops, and dietary needs change from ferret to ferret (as I'm sure you are more than aware of) and throughout each their lives. Continuing to search out and finding more protein types assures covering all of your little ones' dietary needs. I would also like you to be aware that though you now have the capability and the knowledge to create and adjust your little ones diets, you are never alone and that your mentor (you need only pm) is always available to you. The list is also a very good resource and you should always be aware that it's available to answer any questions you may have either about diet or care. Good luck, in a few days either Sherry or I will lock down this thread. If you wish to update your menu do so now as it will be viewed and can be used by yourself and many others at any time as a reference tool. Once it gets locked down you will not be able to post or change it. Your mentor will be in to congratulate you shortly . Congratulations again ciao
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