Post by luci on Sept 26, 2008 1:02:53 GMT -5
Hello! My ages old screen nickname is Luci, so I'll use that here so I will recognize myself. My real name is Tara. I have a total of four carnivorous monsters. Two of the feline variety (Khina and Gordie) and two of the mustelid classification (Fierra and Ghia). I live with the monsters and my darling man, Dave, in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Fierra and Ghia are our first ferrets though I had wanted ferrets for as long as I can remember. I wanted to be sure I could provide a good home for them, so I waited allllllllll these years to get them. We adopted them through a rescue just this past December. They are more fun and adorable than I'd even thought possible. We were told that Fierra was 2 years old and Ghia was 1 1/2 when we got them. Of course they were eating the worst possible kibble and they looked it, poor babies. Wiry coarse fur, icky teeth, kinda stinky... you know the drill. It took two months to get them to eat EVO kibble and even that was a drastic improvement in appearance, smell and energy.
In May I finished my research (well, enough to feel comfortable diving in) about raw diets for cats and switched Khina and Gordie from their premium canned diet to prey model raw. No issues with the switch other than figuring out that they needed to be separated at mealtimes. No biggie. Things are great. They'll eat anything I put down for them. I have a wonderful source for organic, pasture raised meats that I can get for cheap and/or free. I couldn't be happier with the results.
After I felt like I had a handle on what to do to provide a proper diet for the cats I was ready to move on to the ferrets. I first plunked down a chunk of chicken breast and hoped that I'd be like THE luckiest person ever and that they'd eat it. But of course not. So I started introducing meat baby food. That went over pretty well pretty quickly. Once they were really starting to enjoy baby food time I tried slipping the TINIEST of bits of chicken into the baby food. No good. Pa-TOOOO onto the floor. Look at me like I'm an evil person trying to poison them. Le sigh. So... tried boiling chicken breast, cutting it into kibble sized pieces, coating it in pulverized kibble and mixing it in with the regular kibble. Ignored it for a while, but then started accidentally eating the chicken. Less kibble, more chicken. Less kibble, more chicken. A couple months later... ALL CHICKEN! WOO! Lordy they're stubborn. So I am happy to say that right now we are COMPLETELY OFF KIBBLE! They're not totally digging completely raw chunks, but they will eat one inch square cubes of turkey, chicken and pork that have been blanched for about 5 seconds. Today I did get each of them to eat a small bit of completely raw turkey, but they weren't really sure they should trust me. To round out their diet I've made a mash of raw turkey leg meat, chicken heart, a bit of chicken liver, an egg yolk, a little pinch of eggshell and chicken baby food and they eat that up no problem. They are really excited about their mealtimes and they look so happy running off with their hunks of meat to eat them in private and then running back to me for more. It's been a lot of work and I know I still have more work ahead of me, but I'm thrilled with the progress I've made so far and I'm grateful to have found wonderful places like this forum to give support and encouragement. Thank you for inviting me, Giuliana!
Fierra and Ghia are our first ferrets though I had wanted ferrets for as long as I can remember. I wanted to be sure I could provide a good home for them, so I waited allllllllll these years to get them. We adopted them through a rescue just this past December. They are more fun and adorable than I'd even thought possible. We were told that Fierra was 2 years old and Ghia was 1 1/2 when we got them. Of course they were eating the worst possible kibble and they looked it, poor babies. Wiry coarse fur, icky teeth, kinda stinky... you know the drill. It took two months to get them to eat EVO kibble and even that was a drastic improvement in appearance, smell and energy.
In May I finished my research (well, enough to feel comfortable diving in) about raw diets for cats and switched Khina and Gordie from their premium canned diet to prey model raw. No issues with the switch other than figuring out that they needed to be separated at mealtimes. No biggie. Things are great. They'll eat anything I put down for them. I have a wonderful source for organic, pasture raised meats that I can get for cheap and/or free. I couldn't be happier with the results.
After I felt like I had a handle on what to do to provide a proper diet for the cats I was ready to move on to the ferrets. I first plunked down a chunk of chicken breast and hoped that I'd be like THE luckiest person ever and that they'd eat it. But of course not. So I started introducing meat baby food. That went over pretty well pretty quickly. Once they were really starting to enjoy baby food time I tried slipping the TINIEST of bits of chicken into the baby food. No good. Pa-TOOOO onto the floor. Look at me like I'm an evil person trying to poison them. Le sigh. So... tried boiling chicken breast, cutting it into kibble sized pieces, coating it in pulverized kibble and mixing it in with the regular kibble. Ignored it for a while, but then started accidentally eating the chicken. Less kibble, more chicken. Less kibble, more chicken. A couple months later... ALL CHICKEN! WOO! Lordy they're stubborn. So I am happy to say that right now we are COMPLETELY OFF KIBBLE! They're not totally digging completely raw chunks, but they will eat one inch square cubes of turkey, chicken and pork that have been blanched for about 5 seconds. Today I did get each of them to eat a small bit of completely raw turkey, but they weren't really sure they should trust me. To round out their diet I've made a mash of raw turkey leg meat, chicken heart, a bit of chicken liver, an egg yolk, a little pinch of eggshell and chicken baby food and they eat that up no problem. They are really excited about their mealtimes and they look so happy running off with their hunks of meat to eat them in private and then running back to me for more. It's been a lot of work and I know I still have more work ahead of me, but I'm thrilled with the progress I've made so far and I'm grateful to have found wonderful places like this forum to give support and encouragement. Thank you for inviting me, Giuliana!
) Feel free to prowl around and drop into conversations. Hope to see you around
