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Post by animalsgetrevenge on Oct 10, 2008 14:34:07 GMT -5
I have offered thawed "jumbo" mice twice in the past 2 or so months.
I have tried: playing with it putting it on a string using their favorite bell for encouragement cutting it open cutting it into pieces using ferretvite for flavor blending it into mush mixing the mush with other meats (that they like) fasting first leaving it as an only option to eat for hours
.... What is left to try? I would rather not try live prey first. At this point I am not ready to kill an injured mouse if my ferrets won't. I would also feel bad if my ferrets killed it but didn't eat it.
One time I was able to get Didjeridu to "kill" it and he chewed its skull a bit but only enough to crush the bone, not eat it. Both Didj and Ramona have ate a 2-3 bites of mice total over the two times I have tried. Ernie won't even look at it!
I hate to keep failing at this... my DOG won't even sniff it more than twice and she LOVES raw food. I'm wasting a mouse!
Suggestions?
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Post by Forum Administrator on Oct 10, 2008 18:53:21 GMT -5
Start them out on pinkies (which are like candy to many ferrets) and slowly wean them onto larger mice Hang in ther. They'll come around. If you need additional assistance I can switch out jennifer for my b/f tim, who specializes in whole prey
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Post by animalsgetrevenge on Oct 11, 2008 12:27:15 GMT -5
Thanks Giuli! Do you mean live or frozen pinkies?
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Post by animalsgetrevenge on Oct 11, 2008 20:58:15 GMT -5
Great news about Didjeridu and Ramona! I picked up ten frozen pinkie mice and ten frozen hoppers today... I offered both... Didjer immediately took and chomped down one pinkie then ate the head off another. I offered a hopper and he chewed in in half and ate about 1/3 of it. Ramona licked the second headless pinkie after I put a drop of ferretone on it, then ate the rest of the hopper (2/3) with a drop of ferretone! This is their first time willingly eating whole prey! They had also eaten chicken about 2.5 hours before and had extra chicken in their cage so they probably weren't even hungry, just interested! The only problem is that I spent over $20 on 10 pinkies and 10 hoppers! RIP OFF! Oh well, at least now I know that they will eat them! I'm so proud! Ernie licked the pinkie twice with the ferretone but had NO interest besides that, but I didn't expect him to try it. Let me know if this belongs in its own thread: I also talked to Tony (my man) about breeding mice. I explained my reasoning which put simply came down to: 1. Whole prey is the most natural diet a ferret could eat and breeding mice would be the least expensive way to put whole prey into their diet. 2. By breeding mice I would know exactly HOW the animals were treated before ending up in my ferrets' bellies. I would know they had been treated with respect and lived a healthy, fullfilling life and ate a healthy diet too. Today understood and agreed with what I said. I could tell he didn't really like the idea but he wasn't completely against it... Which means in time I might be able to convince him! If I did start breeding mice or could find live or frozen mice from a cheap source, how much of their diet could be mice?? (obviously of all different ages) I thought 30-50% would be reasonable, but then again I am totally undereducated when it comes to the polecat's diet.
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