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Post by Heather on Sept 9, 2008 16:13:55 GMT -5
Well try one thing at a time. Get information together to state your case. Let's start with just the raw diet. You think you have a better chance at going to bat with that. You know better health, cleaner teeth, don't spend as much on vet bills!! that's a biggy. Let her voice her concerns about the raw. What are they? Can you come up with a plausible argument for each of her reasons. Listen to her, don't try and railroad her, you have to reason, not argue . If you can convince her to let you try raw, after a time she might let you serve frozen mice. Then you go to the cost factor for mice and see about raising them yourself. If you've had rodents for pets before she does have a good argument. You have to see it from our point of view too Look at each in small steps instead of one giant leap. We mothers can be reasonable Good luck sweety, I know where you're coming from, my mother wouldn't have let me do it either I've now got grown children and if I lived at home she still wouldn't let me have mice in the house, come to think of it she wouldn't let me have ferrets either... ciao
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Post by weloveourweasels on Sept 10, 2008 4:00:17 GMT -5
As I told you an yahoo answers (I know it is you because i recognize your story) Your best bet to get them on a better diet may be prepared frozen raw. You don't have to prepare the meat and you don't have to raise whole prey. You would want to feed the FROZEN raw NOT the freeze dried raw as there is some stuff in there that ferrets cannot digest. Here is the link for that again. www.naturesvariety.com/raw_productsThere are some other brands. Maybe people on here can help you decide which variety may be best for you.
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Post by Heather on Sept 10, 2008 15:14:54 GMT -5
Ok, I think I see some of the problems you're encountering. If your momma is pregnant she doesn't want added responsibilities of your furbabies making a mess, or the chance that her baby (once up and mobile) stands the chance of getting into the raw food. I would also guess (just remembering me at 9 months preggers, I was cross as an old she-bear , so you may not want push too hard at the moment) Now, I could give you the song and dance about how there's as much salmonella in kibble (which there is by the way) as raw but it probably woudn't fly with your mother, she's still looking at raw meat sitting around collecting flies and bacteria. So, you have to think of how that food stays in with the ferrets and not around the house, where it will make a mess and possibly cause health problems. What was your track record for keeping previous pets clean and out of trouble? That too, may cause you some grief, depending on what you did then Ground raw diet can get expensive, I belong to a coop and buy meat in 50lb cases, this makes it much cheaper. I do buy some prefab meats (I use a local supplier who has meat, bone and offal only mixes) I also feed 14 ferrets. You are feeding 2....raw is much cheaper than kibbles. Is raw more expensive than top end kibble...not where I'm coming from. So if you do your research you will find that raw is initially cheaper than kibble. You will also take advantages of sales, chicken legs, pork riblets, small whole quail...things like that Now prey...for me it's hugely expensive over raw. You will also pay less in vet bills but that's long term advantage, not one you will see right away but it's still there. Now, I'm going to start raising some mice, and maybe some hamsters (haven't decided on that one yet) to help ease the cost of buying prey. I get a really good deal from a person who raises snakes and raises her own rats and mice for the snakes. I get the surplus, so she doesn't charge me the going pet store rate for prey. I'm sure others will have some ideas for you as well, I'm out the door at the moment but I will check back in and see if I can add anything else to your argument ciao
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Post by Heather on Sept 11, 2008 10:26:43 GMT -5
The worst bite I've ever had was from a hamster I think that's why I won't have a problem feeding them You realize that once you start feeding prey that your little darlings will suddenly look at your managerie with a whole different point of view? My guys know exactly what a mouse and a rat are good for..... It only takes a second and it's all done We've had a couple of people loose breeding stock because they let a moment lapse and that stock became diner It would be awful if your little furbabies suddenly decided to invite one of your pets to dinner, especially if they're all meant to cohabitate. Ok, as it sits your mother is more apt to allow you to feed prey than raw. See if she's more into allowing you to buy frozen...maybe it's the whole pet eating pet thing (that really grosses some people out ) Now that means sharing the freezer, unless you have access to frozen prey on a daily basis (it's cheaper to buy in bulk) I was keeping my rats in cookie tins in the freezer until my son went down to raid the cookie container I now keep them in plastic store bags, so noone can see them. ciao
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Post by Heather on Sept 11, 2008 15:20:59 GMT -5
Would she allow you to have a small freezer of your own? You know apt size? That would hold more than enough food for your furbabies. It would also allow you to store, and take advantage of specials or small bulk buys. They can live on a predominantly prey diet...."80-90% rodents is good. Quail, chicks, lizards, bugs, fish, and eggs can make up the other 10-20% of the diet" is a quote from Giuli in an earlier message. If you can find a person who has snakes and raises their own prey, that might help you too. Then you wouldn't have to store all your own. You can also supplement with specials on gibblets, chicken legs, pork ribblets....anything that has smaller bones. Sometimes they have sales on small mackerel (fish) and things like that too. We'll get there We'll just have to work all the angles ciao
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Post by Heather on Sept 12, 2008 11:20:04 GMT -5
Ok, I can't help you about the smell, I honestly don't know yet (my first batch of mice are scheduled for delivery today). I know the males smell worse than the females and that if you only keep one male in with the females then it's not as bad as keeping a bunch of males together. Kim, is probably the best person on board to get to talk about her mice....actually there is a section in the prey part of the list where Kim talks about her set up...she has a huge number of mice living in her bathroom She also has links embedded in that discussion where you can go online and find even more information. She also talks about culling the baby boys, she just feeds them to the ferrets....they're just food. What do you do with your ferrets when you go on vacation? Actually, you have multiple pets....what do you do for them? Do you have someone come in and look after them? You can get someone to come in and look after your mice. ciao
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Post by Heather on Sept 12, 2008 22:26:10 GMT -5
What if you taught your furbabies to eat both whole prey and whole meats? So while you're away they can eat chicken legs or quail, pork riblets, chicken wings, gibblets and hearts (my guys favourite treat ...I"m trying to think of things you could just buy at a grocery store, that no body would complain about if you stored the foods in your grandma's fridge or freezer . This would also allow you to keep some of the costs of feeding down a bit by taking advantage of sales and such. Just an idea ciao
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Post by Heather on Sept 14, 2008 15:44:35 GMT -5
Unfortunately, as long as you live at home, there are house rules and those are the rules you have to follow. All you can do is try and reason with your mother (who is probably not going to be very reasonable, being preggers and all ::)at the moment) Now, it's going to be up to you to try and get her to see your point of view and try and get her to come over to your side. We've given you some ammunition to use in your argument but we can't tell you to to ahead and feed your furbabies raw, when she says you can't. I wish you luck, but the only other alternative I can think of is very expensive high end kibbles like archetypal (freeze dried meat) and such (I don't have much knowledge or expertise on that stuff ). I hope that I will see you sometime on the newbie switching list but otherwise we will be bumping into each other on the general ferret stuff ciao
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Post by Heather on Sept 15, 2008 9:21:12 GMT -5
You've gone from the area of my expertise Try posting your question in the general feeding section. It might get you more responses. I'm thinking Evo, though I understand that Zupreem is up there. Evo carries both cat/kitten and ferret. There was a section there on which was better...I think they decided it was basically the same food. Try posting your question there. You may get some hits here, depending on who's been following this thread but you will get more if you start a question there. Good luck, hope to see you around. ciao
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Post by suds on Sept 15, 2008 17:03:58 GMT -5
here is a website that has a food chart on it to help you decide which kibbles are better the first 3 or 4 ingredients should be meat based the less fillers ( grains, corns , fruit and other vegs ) the better I fed a mix of evo and zupreem ultimate before I switched to Wysong Archetype I and freesedried home.att.net/~ferretfriendsofpgh/foodchart.htm
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