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Post by mouse on Sept 16, 2008 9:40:47 GMT -5
Well, she still didn't eat much if anything last night. I know she licked the ferretone off the meat. I had made cuts on the chicken drum and smeared the ferretone on it. I can't tell if Mouse ate any or not.
So I assume I should go back a few steps. Chunks of meat. I wonder if white meat is not interesting as red meat to her. Afterall, she has been eating venison for nearly a month... I guess I will try the beef chunks tonight and I will cut them up little and mix a little of NV's venison into it. Sounds good?
At this time, I don't think I can get another ferret. One is quite the handful. But that was a good idea about rescuing one with that already has a history of being potty trained. They should also know if it is a biter as well...
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Post by tss on Sept 16, 2008 10:47:30 GMT -5
Yeah, it sounds like you need to take a fed steps backward. It is possible that she had acquired a taste for red meat, just like many dogs do. Beef chunks sound like a plan.
Even if you can't adopt another try to keep a open mind. I had three (as you know) but Jill passed away back in April, there is a shelter an hour from here near where I work at the rabbitry and they were called to get a ferret that was found abandon in a empty house. The sad thing is that the shelter just gives all of their animals away so she is up to grabs for anyone. I am going to the rabbitry sometime this week and she will hopefully still be there.. It's one of those deals where I feel is was kinda "meant to be". She is a pretty medium haired dark eyed white with a spot on her nose :-)
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Post by mouse on Sept 16, 2008 19:37:30 GMT -5
Sorry to hear of Jill. But it is nice you might be getting another soon. So you will have a pack of white colored ferrets? ;D
Well, Mouse is eating her food out of the dish. It has 0.5 oz NV's venison and 1.5 oz beef in 1/2" cubes. At first she was just selectively grabbing the NV's venison, but I saw her grab some beef too. So at least she will eat this way. She did eat all the NV's venison in the bowl and stashed the left over beef chunks all over her cage before attempting to tip over her food bowl. I still need to make her a proper feeding den.
So what should I do tomorrow? Larger chunks of beef with NV's venison? Beef chunks with no NV's venison? (I don't have any organs thawed yet but if I need it I can thaw it quickly enough.) I also have a game hen drum (tiny...haha) thawed, and if Mouse isn't getting it tomorrow my dog Goofy will. Going to thaw out some chicken drums for future days...
So far attempted this week...
Sun: Chicken drum - ate very little if any
Mon: Chicken drum part 2 - ate very little if any
Tues: Small beef chunk with NV's venison - she is eating
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Post by tss on Sept 17, 2008 10:28:08 GMT -5
hey would all be with. Weezer does have a grey tail and grey "pepper" all thru his coat. Lilly is albino. It didn't happen intentionally though, Weezer belonged to a friend, I got Jill and Lil as a pair because I posted a CL ad for unwanted ferrets and I ran across the other ferret while trying to find a ferret for someone else.
I wasn't able to get on the computer lastnight so I'm not sure if you've fed her already.
Can you mix some of the NV with warm water and make it soupie? If so do that then add some larger beef chunks to it and mix it all together.Or chop the game hen drum into a few small pieces and try the same thing. You can go ahead and thaw the organs out and try them too.
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Post by mouse on Sept 17, 2008 19:20:28 GMT -5
Okay, 1 cube of organ thawing. I am also thawing chicken drum, 1/4 game hen (drum section), and beef chunks. Again, whatever Mouse doesn't get, my dog Goofy will be more than happy to eat up.
Tonight Mouse got soupy NV's venison with beef chunk and game hen drum (I figured why not for fun...). True to her style, she got whatever venison she could get (which wasn't a whole lot). Then she took the beef chunks out. Then last she fished out the game hen drum that was drowning then left it on the side forgotten. She actually stashed the beef chunk on a shelf in her cage. That is a first... Btw, the little miss toppled her food bowl...
My girl loves her red meat. So I guess the problem is to get her to eat white meat? Haven't tried organs again yet.
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Post by tss on Sept 18, 2008 8:37:10 GMT -5
Sneaky arent they? The issue with her not eating white meat is that in a non whole prey diet the main bone supply comes from chicken. On Dogster didn't you mention having some of The Honest Kitchen? You should see if she will eat a bit, if she will put some of the powder on some chicken and mix it. That is the exact way I had done it with Weezer.
She still might eat the chicken drum by it's self though, it would be fattier and probably taste a bit better then the game hen.
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Post by mouse on Sept 18, 2008 10:32:18 GMT -5
All out of THK. I do have Ziwi Peak (for Cricket) and it is venison. I do have samples of it in Lamb and Venison&Fish though. I also have Stella&Chewy's freeze dried patties in chicken as well as beef.
Chicken drum was tried earlier this week with no good results.
Last nights beef was all eaten, but the game hen drum was left untouched as far as I can tell.
I suppose I can...
1. Cold turkey (or chicken) switch. Only white meat available so she has no option but to eat it because she is hungry. She knows white meat is food because she has eaten it before and within the month. She prefers red though.
2. Mix premade red with premade white. Or mix ground with premade. Basically mix both together mashed in with mostly red to start and slowly increasing the white until she is on all white. Then switch to adding bone.
3. Try premade red soup with white chunks. Make bits of chicken smaller to blend it and slowly go for larger chunks while reducing red soup.
4. Have a conversation with the miss telling her she better start eating the white meat or else she will be grounded... yeah, like that would work.
5. something else?
What route should I go with her? End result I need is her eating white meat with bone.
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Post by tss on Sept 18, 2008 12:26:12 GMT -5
Crushed Stella and Chewys would also work great.
If it isn't too much trouble you can also try your "2nd plan". It seems like it would also be likely to work.
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Post by mouse on Sept 18, 2008 21:19:34 GMT -5
Okay, going with plan 2.
I mixed 0.5 oz NV's venison with one whole S&C's freeze dried Chicken. I added some warm water and mashed everything together. So far, little miss picky did search out the venison by carefully tasting what was in the bowl, but I mashed it up real good so she will be getting some of the other stuff.
I will do the same tomorrow as well. How many days do I do this for and when do I move on? I figure the next step is to add ground chicken to the mix and slowly eliminate adding the venison?
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Post by tss on Sept 19, 2008 9:38:16 GMT -5
I would feed the premade mix for a few days, it's a stable food for now. I would do what you mentioned, slowly replace the venison with ground chicken and see how it goes. If that works well then you can slowly replace the ground with chunks.
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Post by mouse on Sept 19, 2008 20:52:15 GMT -5
Well, my bad. It looks like I don't have as much S&C's freeze-dried chicken samples as I had hoped. Only enough for tonight and tomorrow the way I fed last night. So I did a slight modification which seems to be working out to my advantage.
I thawed some chicken drums and beef chunks earlier this week. They were in the same bag since when I froze them I put them together as a meal plan for both Mouse and my dog. Well, with Mouse not eating the white meat well, plans changed. But since I didn't have enough freeze-dried, I improvised a little.
So tonight Mouse got 0.5 oz venison, 1/2 a freeze-dried chicken patty, some warm water, some tiny chicken chunks, and some beef blood. All mashed up and mixed up.
She is eating the chicken chunks when she gets it. 0.0 She is eating the mash rather happily once it was placed in her cage. I wonder if the chicken picked up some flavor from the beef that was also in the bag... Either way, I can do this for 3 more nights until I am all out of freeze-dried chicken. Since Tuesday is my day off, I can pick up more foods if I need.
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Post by tss on Sept 19, 2008 21:37:25 GMT -5
When you say beef blood do you mean meat drippings or store bought? If you have store bought, or can get some you can marinate the chicken in it. It'll give it that beefy flavor but obviously its still chicken, you can just slowly reduce the amount you use or the time it marinates.
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Post by mouse on Sept 19, 2008 22:14:27 GMT -5
Yes, it is the drippings that look red. When I bought beef and chicken drums, I portioned out 2 drums and some chunks of beef each bag and froze them. I made 3 bags like this. One was already used so is gone. The other is in the fridge now which I took some chunks of chicken off the drum and used the drippings from. Then there is one more bag in the freezer. I never thought about using the juice or joining the flavors.
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Post by mouse on Sept 20, 2008 16:20:50 GMT -5
Tonight's dinner was offered earlier since I don't know how late I will get home tonight. It consisted of less venison and more chicken chunks which are also a bit larger than last night. I also included the stripped drum which still has some meat on it. I am hoping she will try it... either way it was about to be tossed anyways.
Once the bowl was in her cage, she went straight to eating after inspecting what she was given. She is eating the chicken chunks with no problems. There was only .3 oz of venison...hehe I will have to wait to see if she messes with the bone though.
Tomorrow I will probably throw in the organs since I did thaw them and don't want them to go bad. If she eats them, great.
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Post by tss on Sept 21, 2008 12:34:21 GMT -5
Wow, that's great! We kinda ran into the same problem last night, my fuzzies had steak with egg shell and liver for the last week. Lastnight I fed some chicken and they only wanted to beef livery pieces. Today they gobbled some turkey up just fine though.
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