Vivi and Freya going raw!

[savagedestiny]

1. How many ferrets do you currently have? What are their names, ages, genders, and do they have any health problems?
Vivi is my only ferret. He is male, and my vet estimates he is between 2-4 years old. He was found in someone's garage, so we don't know his age for sure. He is generally healthy, but about 1-2lbs underweight.

2. What are your ferrets currently eating? What Kind of diet do you want to switch to?
Vivi is currently eating EVO cat kibble, but I would prefer him to be on raw like the rest of my animals.


3. Please list the current weight for your ferret(s). Do they appear overweight? Underweight? How is there muscle tone?
He's about 2lbs right now, and underweight. Very little muscle tone.

4. What is the condition of your ferret's teeth/gums? (can you get a picture?)
A bit of plaque and tartar, nothing serious. His teeth are also slightly worn.

5. Describe the texture/color of your ferrets coat.
Vivi is creamy coloured with dark tips on his back. To me, his coat feels rough and dry, but I'm not overly familiar with how a ferret's coat should feel.

6. How often does your ferret go to the bathroom?
He goes pretty often, I'd say he poops at least 5 times a day.

7. Does your ferret's feces and/or urine smell?
Urine no, feces yes, and his stool is loose.

8. Smell your ferret. How strong is their odor?
He doesn't smell much at all.

9. On a scale of 1-10, 1 being completely lethargic and 10 being "through the roof!" what is your ferret's energy level?
I'd give Vivi a 5 although once he starts putting weight on that may go up.

10. How excited is your ferret about meal time (when fed kibble)?
Not very excited.

11. What other information about your ferret(s) would you like to share?
Actually feeding this guy is making me want to slam my head against the wall right now. He is a complete kibble addict. He won't eat raw, he won't even eat more than a nibble of canned food! I think his biggest problem right now is that he doesn't understand the concept of meal times. He doesn't want to eat all his food at once, and I can't leave canned food sitting out forever. Nor can I just take it away and hope he's hungry for the next meal later because I'm afraid of him getting low blood sugar.

Right now what I'm doing is making sure he comes out and hangs in the kitchen with the cats and dog during meal preparation. Everyone's all psyched up to eat, because they only get breakfast and dinner. I'm hoping he picks up on the routine. He does seem to get it at least a little, if I wiggle his bowl in front of him and walk to his room he'll follow me down the hallway and then eat some kibble when I put it down. He never eats all of it at once though.

I guess I just need help with advice on how to get the little stinker to eat what's healthy for him.

a.) Do you understand that by starting this thread you commit to posting updates on the progress of your ferret(s) diet switch at least every other day?**

b.) Do you understand that if you will be away from your computer for an extended period of time you will need to exchange phone numbers (or email addresses if you don't feel comfortable exchanging numbers) via private message with your assigned mentor, so that we can monitor your progress and ensure your ferret's safety during the switch? (Please post below letting us know that you and your mentor have exchanged phone numbers or emails)

c.) Do you understand that any threads that have not been updated in for more then a week (with no explanation as to why you are absent) will result in the deletion of the thread?

Tacking this on to show I've read and understand it.

[Forum Administrator]

Welcome to the group

Okey, dokey, to get Vivi on raw.....

Here is what you need to do. I need you to go out and get a 10ml feeding syringe. You can find them at Walgreens and sometimes at your local petshop. If all else fails, try online or at your vet's office.

Now, do you have access to a blender? If so, whip up the following recipie:

8oz of raw chicken thigh meat (include fat and skin)
1 tsp of crushed eggshell powder
1 raw chicken heart
1/2 raw chicken liver
1 tbsp heavy whipping cream
1 tbsp crushed kibble
(optional) Add water to make it thinner if necessarry

Warm slightly, but do not cook! Make sure the mixture is not too hot. The best way to do this is to put it in a plastic baggy and run it under hot/warm water. Suck this mixture up into the feeding syringe. Scruff your ferret and SLOWLY squirt some of this mixture into his mouth. Use the guide below to show you how to do this:

www.ferrets1st.com/articles/force_feeding_photo_guide.htm

Okay, now he's probably going to act like you are killing him, but don't despair. Once he's tried it a few times, chances are that he will willingly begin to eat from the syringe. When that happens, SLOWLY feed him the rest of the mixture.

The goal is to get him used to the taste of food, and then eventually he can eat this mixture on his own (in place of kibble). The mixture can be left out for 4-6 hours. Replace it if it starts to smell or look funny.

Once he is eating this mixture on his own from a bowl, you can work him up to SUPER SMALL chunks of meat in the soup, and then we'll progress from there. For now, work on getting him to try the soupy.

Take away his kibble 4-5 hours BEFORE feeding him this soupy (as raw and kibble digest at different rates and if ingested together in large quantities, it can cause tummy upset and susceptability to food bourne illness). So you take away the kibble 4-5 hours before feeding. Then feed him his soupy (say for dinner....or breakfast if its more convenient for you) Then dont give him his kibble for another 4-5 hours AFTER he's eaten about 10ml of the raw soup.

This SHOULD work to get him interested in the taste of pureed raw. Let me know if you have trouble. We'll get your guy switched in no time. I promise!

[savagedestiny]

Mmm, chicken soup. Sounds delicious, heehee.

One question though. Does it have to be chicken organs? I have some rabbit and venison livers in my freezers already, so I was wondering if those would be all right to use instead of buying chicken livers. I just fed the last of the heart I had around though, so I'll have to get more of that.

[Forum Administrator]

Other organs are fine. Rabbit organs work just as well as chicken organs. Just dont slap a whole beef heart in there. Thats too big Be sure to feed a piece of liver no bigger then HALF the size of your palm so as to avoid vitamin A overdose/buildup.

[savagedestiny]

I think my blender might keel over if I threw an entire beef heart in it!

I'll see what sort of hearts we have available at work tomorrow. I work part-time at a natural pet supply store, so the freezers there are always pretty well stocked with various organs.

[Forum Administrator]

How goes it?

[buzzonesbirdie]

Hi, Giuli let me know that she gave me to you as your offical mentor.

So a little about me

I am a 28 year sahm to 5 and 6 year old girls.

When i meet my husband he had one ferret Freedom and within 10 months(maybe less) we were at 10 ferrets. We just got 4 more which i am switching right now so we are 13 ferrets right now.

We switched Freedom, Snowy, Fatty,Tootsie and Tigger. We got everyone switch but Fatty. He was feed seperatly 4 times a day with Kibble(not any fun let me tell you).

Then we added Riely who was swtiched within days as he was a baby.

Then came Crash, who within of being with us for 2 hours was eating chicken.

Durring this time we managed to get Fatty eating soup but never got him to chunks.

We then added Zues and Xena--at this time we put Zues, Xena and Fatty in one cage and got Zues and Xena on the soup that Fatty was on and within a month all three were on raw (Something finally clicked with Fatty--we dont know how what or why but were glad that it did).

Then our last two added were Hydra and Odin and they came from a private breeder who feed them raw so no switching was needed.

Now i am working on the new ones

I feed raw and whole prey. The whole prey that I feed is from rodenpro and we do mice, baby chicks, quail, and rabbits. For some reason i cannot feed rats (i dont know please dont ask ) about once a month or so hubby will go buy live hoppers and then the fuzzies go nuts. Even Fatty who is blind manges to get a few(but Hydra kills some and brings them to him its cute)

Ok thats about it -enough about me back to you....

[savagedestiny]

Well, Vivi will be getting his first syringe-fed meal tonight. I have had the devil's own time finding a syringe around here! But a coworker of mine is bringing me one today, so little Vivi dude is going to start transitioning whether he likes it or not!

I can't imagine all the fun you guys must have with 13 fuzzbutts running around. I don't think my dog would appreciate living with that many ferrets though- she's still scared of Vivi!

[savagedestiny]

We had a couple setbacks, and also a big success!

Basically, I absolutely could not make the mix liquidy enough to get through a syringe, not unless I wanted it over 1/2 water. My blender sucks, so I kinda gave up on that. However, I did remember I had some canned watery enough to get through a syringe, so I tried that- Vivi LOVED it! This guy would not TOUCH canned before, but all it took was one squirt of the syringe to have him saying YUM and assaulting me for more from the syringe. I fed him a little more out of it, then squirted the rest into his bowl- he scarfed it all down. So I'm redoing my plan of action, and doing what I did with my cats- tonight he's going to get a canned meal with a bit of raw mixed in, and I'll gradually mix in more and more raw. It worked wonders for my cats, so now that he's eating canned I don't forsee a problem.

Freya, Vivi's new sister (thread is here: holisticferret.proboards80.com/index.cgi?board=talking&action=display&thread=1307) is more of a problem. Unlike Vivi, she HATES the syringe. I think syringe feeding might be counterproductive with her- I made her eat some from it, but now she won't come near me if I've got the syringe, and when she sniffed the canned Vivi was eating in his bowl, she actually hissed and recoiled. I think she's decided anything which smells like the stuff from the syringe is the devil. Any ideas?

[Forum Administrator]

1. Im happy to hear that you found a way to get Vivi to try the raw. It doesnt matter if its a different way then what was suggested, the point is you found SOMETHING that works for you. That is great!

2. Okay, so for your new addition try SPOON feeding OR put a blob of soup on (not in) her nose using your index finger. If that doesnt work you can try introducing her to a plate of soupy with crushed kibble on top. She is so young that I doubt we'll have any real trouble with her. If those suggestions dont work, just let Jasmine (your mentor) know, by posting her in this thread and between me and her we'll come up with something that WILL work.

[buzzonesbirdie]

I have had a lot of sucuess with putting the food on the nose and then letting them eat it of off my finger for a while.
Let us know if that works

But i am glad that the feeding worked with Vivi

[savagedestiny]

Well, Vivi's still progressing. He's not keen on the raw mixed with canned, but he'll nibble on some of the raw, so I think he's on the road to success. Freya wouldn't eat the raw out of a spoon or even off her nose (she just scraped it off with her paw), but she's currently nibbling on some raw with crushed kibble on top. Vivi already ate his whole dinner and went to sleep, so I left Freya's dinner in the cage with them, and hopefully when I check back she'll have done more than just hoover the kibble off the top.

[Forum Administrator]

If Freya still wont eat the raw soup, scruff her, and rub some on her gums. Usually once they actually TASTE the food they realize "hey this stuff is awesome!"

[savagedestiny]

Vivi is still going well. I'm continuing to mix more and more raw in. I added a couple verrry small bone chunks (like pencil eraser size) and he didn't want to eat them, but I put them on my fingers and held them out and he ate them right up. He seems to have come to the conclusion that all things good come from my hands, which is definitely not a problem for me! Heehee!

Freya is still a stinker. I rubbed some raw on her gums, and she'll grudgingly swallow it if I do, but she absolutely will not eat it from my fingers, a syringe, or a bowl still. Will not. I really don't want to stuff her meals down her twice a day. Any more suggestions? I'm starting to get very worried about her- she hasn't eaten more than the little bits I've managed to force feed her since Friday morning.

[buzzonesbirdie]

Vivi is still going well. I'm continuing to mix more and more raw in. I added a couple verrry small bone chunks (like pencil eraser size) and he didn't want to eat them, but I put them on my fingers and held them out and he ate them right up. He seems to have come to the conclusion that all things good come from my hands, which is definitely not a problem for me! Heehee! I had a couple like that and have one that I am switching right now that is like that. Sooner or later they realize that they get more food faster if they just eat it on their own, but as long as you don't mind feeding him like this for a while its not a problem

Freya is still a stinker. I rubbed some raw on her gums, and she'll grudgingly swallow it if I do, but she absolutely will not eat it from my fingers, a syringe, or a bowl still. Will not. I really don't want to stuff her meals down her twice a day. Any more suggestions? I'm starting to get very worried about her- she hasn't eaten more than the little bits I've managed to force feed her since Friday morning. I know you said that at one point she was eating raw with kibble on top, is she not even doing that now??? I'll be honest I had a few that as soon as they heard the blender they went into hiding because they did not want to be force feed with the syringe, but since they did not eat any other way we did the forced feedings. I do not normally suggest the use of ferratone but if She likes the taste of it and you do not mind using a little bit of it, blend some of that with the phone or just put a smear on the top of it. Not sure what else to say maybe Giuli has an idea