Some kibble questions and such

[Deleted]

So Jinx has been on the Zupreem Grain-Free Ferret Food. He does well on it but I really wanted him on a raw diet. I tried easing him into it for a while when he was baby based on reading through these forums and had no luck. He simply would not do it, (not to mention its ridiculously hard to find anything but just normal chicken breasts here :\ There isn't even a place to buy mice if I wanted to go that route!

So anyways, after a few weeks of no luck I switched him completely over from the Marshall diet he was on when I got him to the Zupreem, thinking that at least was a little better. He's so picky, he doesn't even have an interest in ANY type of treat. Unless of course he finds a stay dog kibble on the floor or if he gets into the cat's bowl. Then a change is ok

With my new job starting in January I'm going to be in a position to feed him a better quality food. (then maybe try raw again, if i can find organs and what not) I've heard about doing ratio mixes between different brands, but now that EVO is apparently not as good as it used to be, what do y'all recommend? What brands and what ratio should I use?

Also, should I try making this DUCK soup stuff I keep reading about and introduce it and see if I can't get him interested?

[Sherry]

For kibbles, Origen, Wellness Core, Arcana are good ones from what I understand. With the soup, it's ALWAYS a good idea having them accept some form of soup for when they get sick and don't want to eat their regular food

[Deleted]

Is there a recipie for it, or is it something you buy and mix lol.

I'll have to figure out how to get him to try it, he turns his nose up to everything!!

[Deleted]

And for the brands such as Origin, do you just feed the cat and kitten?

[Deleted]

Yes, cat and kitten regular poultry and fish food. Wysong Epigen 90 ferret is another good food as well as NVI Raw boost and Go! Fit & Free.

There is an actual commercial product called duk soup that you can buy, but honestly I would not. It's full of not so good for your ferret things.

I'd just make home made soup using ground up kibble and water and easing him into ground meat and baby food soups.

Also, some ferrets are very stubborn. I have 9, I have been doing soups and RMBs for maybe 5-6 weeks now. I still have 2 ferrets who have not progressed past the soup stage yet. One will not touch anything but soup, the other is slowly starting to trust me and try bits of meat. She took 2 weeks to get eating soup, she was convinced I was trying to poison her.

[kpaz]

It took me at least six months to switch Goomba to raw, I don't remember exactly how long but I started in January and he didn't fully switch until pretty recently. A mix of kibbles is good because I'd the store is out of one, say an order got screwed up, or they stop carrying it or your supplier goes out of business, trying to introduce new foods then may be really terrible. Your ferret may simply refuse to eat at all. When I fed kibble, I would add maybe 5 pieces of the new brand to the old and slowly add more as they accidentally ate some, and started recognizing it as food. Soup is good for them to get used to because if they are sick sometimes soup is the only way to get food into them. You could make warm kibble soups and slowly add raw to get him used to it, like starting with literally one spoonful of raw soup added to the kibble soup, then Rey slowly adding a tiny bit more. This helped me switch Ellie over to raw. Sherry mentioned some kibbles that are healthier than zupreem; it wasn't until a couple moths ago that a local store opened in my area that carried those, but if you don't have a store nearby you can probably order them online no problem.

[Deleted]

Just so you know, some ferrets have been showing stone development with the high pea/high sweet potato foods.

[Deleted]

None of our stores here sell anything for ferrets, not even cheapo food. So getting it online is my only option unless I want to drive for two hours just for a food trip lol. And even then I can only get the Zupreem or Marshall food. It suprises me how little is around here, even in my old hometown in NC they had the high brand foods in the small pet stores. There isn't even a petstore in the town I live lol.

So I'm thinking of starting by adding the wysong into his food, then I can add something like the Orijen or Wellness, and then take the Zupreem out compleatly. That will give me time to start my new job, I think I can handle a bag of Wysong for now, but I'll definatly be able to afford a whole new diet after I start my new job!!

I guess I'll also start with souping the Zupreem so the taste is the same and then go from there! Hopefully this will work better then last time haha!

I didn't know that about the Zupreem, I guess it's a good thing I'm starting to switch.

[Deleted]

Also, what online retailer do y'all reccomend for buying brands like Origin and what not?

[Deleted]

Also, I have a question about DUK soup. I found Heather's recipie on the old forum

8 oz raw chicken thigh meat (including skin and fat)
1/2 tsp of crushed eggshell powder (take a raw eggshell. Rinse it out. Let it dry. Crush to powder)
1 raw chicken heart
1/2 raw chicken liver
You then add either water or broth (real stuff not the bovril stuff) to make it as liquid as you desire.

What do you do if you can't find hearts? When I orignally tried going raw I looked everywhere locally and everyone I spoke with said they didn't carry hearts anymore.

[Sherry]

You can order them from one of the raw companies, but shipping is insane for a small amount. What others have done is mix in 250mg taurine powder daily. And when you are able to find them somewhere, add the hearts in the diet. You can also order freeze dried hearts from Benny Bully. bennybullys.com/index.php?c=51&t=50

[Deleted]

Well the kibble soupie was a hit! He didn't eat a whole bunch of it but he liked it!

[Sherry]

That's great! And it's always a good idea to have a semi liquid food they will accept for when they are sick, since a ferret frequently won't eat their normal stuff them.
This will also be a great way to introduce raw when the time comes

[Deleted]

Man... Wysong needs to accept paypal so I can order this food! lol

[Deleted]

Either that or ferret.com needs to have the smaller bag, they only carry the 18lb bag :\