Ernie, Didjeridu and Ramona start the switch!

[mustelidmusk]

I'm so trilled that your new little one came right on board with eating the raw....just in time to go through the pre-graduation trial. Now how cool is that?

And we're dying to know how the drumsticks worked out! These threads are like little soap operas - can't wait to see what happens in the next episode

-jennifer

[animalsgetrevenge]

"Congrats on your new baby - that's the easiest delivery I've heard of to date"
Hahaha!!!


The chicken drumstick went okay. I think I mostly over fed them and they didn't touch the bone much. I think I need a little more time before I can trust them all to be stable eaters! This past week has been rocky with their eating habits.

Luckily, I know Didjeridu isn't messing around when it comes to his food! Also, the new baby is doing great... she is a spaz for meat!!! So far she has tried chicken drumstick, chicken neck, beef liver, lamb kidney, and NV raw lamb and beef... she has tried and loved everything!

[mustelidmusk]

They have all the time they need to practice.

One thing you can do to encourage th bone eating is to rim most of the meat off the bone, serve the bones first. After they've had some practice with the bones, you can offer "the good stuff".

Also, as you probably already know, ferrets get this HUGE appetite in the Fall, and then it tapers off quite a bit (Thank God!) once they pack on that layer of winter fat. They're probably tapering off and have more food than they really want, so pickiness sets in!!! When my kids ge picky, I give them a couple of fairly light meals. In fact, I give hem a light meal or two every week.

You kids are still doing fantastic. They're still very, very close to graduation. We are so stinking proud out you

-jennifer

[animalsgetrevenge]

Thanks Jennifer. I like the cutting the meat of the bone idea. I will keep you updated on how things are going!

The baby has now tried beef and pork chunks and Cornish game hen and loves everything!

[animalsgetrevenge]

Yesterday I fed chicken drumsticks. I cut most of the meat off and fed the bone for breakfast, then fed the meat for dinner. They are SOME of the bone and all of the meat. The baby stripped the meat and cartiledge completely off the bone but didn't eat all the bone.

Today I am feeding organs today. This morning while Didjeridu, Ramona, and the baby were out playing, Didjer climbed up into the babies cage and realized I had just put her organ breakfast in there for her. HE FREAKED OUT. He started gobbling up the chunks for fast as possible. I pulled him out and he spent the next 30 minutes trying to climb back into the closed cage that sits 2 feet off the ground! He is nuts for organs!

This afternoon I picked up some chicken livers and chicken wings at New Seasons because I ran out of organs this morning. While bagging it up in the kitchen, I let Vita, Tony's chihuahua, try chicken for the first time. She came right up and did a lick-lick-CHOMP... she loved it! Ajax, my boston terrier mix, gets raw meals every once in a while, but I have never game Vita anything raw. I let Ajax and Vita eat one of the wings. As I separated the liver, I let both dogs try some. Ajax hasn't really liked organs in the past, but today both dogs were super excited about it! I was at my mom's house when I was doing this, and when my ma got home, both dogs didn't even knotice because they were so fixated on what I was doing in the kitchen! Haha. I just had to share. It makes me excited to see them excited about raw!

[Forum Administrator]

I am so proud of how far you come. You are doing great, you are almost there! Have you decided on a name for the baby yet?

PS- That is great about the doggies

[animalsgetrevenge]

Thanks Giuli! I am proud of us too

The baby is still nameless. Since she is Tony's baby, Tony has to name her. He has thought about Pepina, or Pepe for short, but he hasn't made up his mind. I also got him to make an account on here (FuzzeeVegan) so hopefully he will post.... and he can learn how to feed his ferret so I don't have to! Haha!

[mustelidmusk]

Yes, it's a LOT of fun to watch your babies get so excited about food!!!! Think back to the kibble days when food was just there- sitting around and your ferrets couldn't care less when the bowl was refilled

Bone takes a bit of practice - some ferrets never eat the long bone shafts - they munch the ends and softer dark bone bits, which is where most of the nutrients are. They'll eat the wings too. If you find your kids leaving the center shafts of the longer bones, you can provide a few strips from chicken backs...you can even slice the backs with a knife or with kitchen scissors....give the amount they seem to be leaving behind.

-jennifer

[animalsgetrevenge]

Yes, I LOVE seeing how excited they get about food, especially Didjeridu (and of course the baby too). Didjer gets so riled up about organs, mice, and rabbit pinkies. When I feed him his favorites I know better than to stick my hand in there and try to take it back; he hasn't ever bit me but I don't want my fingers to between him and his meaties or meecies!

Thanks for the great ideas with the bone. They often don't eat the center piece on drumsticks, so I will see if I can get some backs from New Seasons.

Today I am feeding fresh chicken wings and a few leftover chunks of neck and some skin and fat. It is going to be a fairly light day because they have wasted a lot of meat so far this week!

Have a great day guys!

[animalsgetrevenge]

I forgot to tell you guys a funny story...

Sometimes I let the ferrets stay out of their cage while we sleep. We have never had an issue with this because they have their own bedroom that is blocked off by a babygate. Last night I woke up because Tony was moving around in the bed. I woke up as he sat up in bed, fumbling with the blankets.. Then he held up ERNIE! who had been chewing on Tony's toes!
That little sneak has managed to JUMP the babygate and find his way into the kitchen! I put him and everyone else into their CAGE and went back to sleep.
In the morning and let them out and Ernie went right back to attempting to jump the gate! My little old man has a lot of energy when he wants it! We were able to tape papertowel rolls to the top of the gate so he has nothing to grab onto when he jumps... he is such a goof!

Today I cut a chicken wing into 3 pieces at the joints and gave them to my monsters. Didj and Ram weren't hungry but Ernie ate almost all of the smallest piece, the tip!

[animalsgetrevenge]

Today I am going to be feeding Cornish Game Hen.

I feel like my ferrets aren't getting the right proportions of organ, meat, and RMB. I have been throwing away a lot of leftovers and I think that they are picking and choosing what they want and I just haven't paid too much attention to it!

On RMB days, can I cut almost ALL the meat off the bones and feed them for breakfast, then when the bones are gone, feed them the cut off flesh? Do you have any other suggestions?

[mustelidmusk]

Is it only the bone eating that's being the problem? Or are they picky on organ meats day too???

Here's something you're probably dealing with right now....when Fall hits, ferrets start eating like pigs. They pack on a bunch of weight and the all of the sudden back off on theamount they are eating. This is normal otherwise my Kachina would have popped from eating too much by now So feed them less now.

Here'swhat I did....
I cut all th meat off of a bunch if bones. I simmered the bones for a couple of days (obviously putting them into the fridge at night). I remove some of the bones
You can boil bones until they get soft enough to crush between your finger tips. Boiling bones does soften then (dry heat makes them splinter, so you need to make sure the bones are always covered with water. If you boil the bone long enough, you can cu them into kibble-size pieces or slightly smaller.
earlier than others. The last of the bones could be stabbed all the way through with a fork. (they just break up. ) I fed the softest bones (from the batch that was cooked longest) first and the hardest batch last over the course of a couple of days. The kids could keep the bones around loner than raw since they were boiled. I then followed the cooked bone with the backs. I followed the cooked bones with backs - Our Wild Oats store has chicken backs and hearts in a frozen section for Cheap. A butcher would have backs too. And they're cheap.

I fed cooked bones in the morning and gave eat ferret about a 1/2 in cube of meat and 1/4 chicken heart. In the evening, I fed back strips first. Then I offered some raw meat. I gave them no treats/ food during th night so they'd be hungry for the bone meals. Initially, I chopped the softer bones into kibble-sized pieces. I only had to boil a bunch of bones onces since I did a bunch of them at once . I made 4 different "hardnesses" by pulling the bones out of the pot 4 different times. I put the bones in zip lock bags and labeled the batches of by "hardness".)
I frozen all bags except for the softest bones, which were fed first.

This worked well for me. I discovered the backs AFter I had boiled all the bones. Those backs are so soft that you can slice the into 1/8 - 1/4 inch strips... It will dull your knife, so don't use a knife that has a good edge (I don't own any good knives!)
Kitchen scissors work well too. 'm not sure I would have needed to boil bones if had found the backs earlier.

Good luck with this approach and let me know if it helps....my work hour should improve AFTER next week, so should have more time online. In the meantime, I apologize for being MIA!!!

-jennifer

[animalsgetrevenge]

Thanks for the great ideas! I will definitely try that in the future if cutting the meat off first doesn't satisfy me.

This morning I fed them Cornish Game hen and cut the meat off of the bone completely. I gave them a tiny bit of dinner so they were really hungry this morning. They chomped down the tony wing bones withing a few minutes, then I fed them the meat. They actually were fighting over the meat! Ernie and Ramona kept stealing one piece back and forth from each other. I didn't give them too much to eat because tonight I should be getting a few rat pups (less than a week old) so my kids get to try their first time at live prey! I am nervous, but I am completely confident that Didjeridu WILL KILL them right away. I will let Ernie sniff them and see what he thinks and let Ramona and the baby try their best at one of them, but in the end I know Didj will do the deed if let him! I am also getting my mice tonight to start breeding! Wish us luck!

[animalsgetrevenge]

Everything has been going alright the past few days. I have changed my technique of feeding because I feel like they aren't getting enough bone in their diet. For example, on the Cornish game hen day, I cut out all of the bones and fed them to the ferrets, and as soon as they were done, I fed them the meat. On meat days I fed them each a small chunk of chicken neck before they got their chunks of pork and beef. Yesterday, a meat day, I also gave them eggs with a little bone meal and rolled their chicken neck chunks in egg shell. Their poops are looking a lot better but still aren't perfect. Is it possible to give them more bone than 4 days a week? I just don't feel like they are getting enough, or they are missing something else, if they are having such wet poop.

Either way, by feeding them a little bit at a time, they are wasting a lot less! They are also SO EXCITED when I feed them. I give each of the big kids a piece and watch them eat, but as soon as the first ferret finished, he/she will try to steal meat from the others!! They sure as heck didn't play tug of war over kibble!

Also, I was able to get young mice to start breeding. You can watch their/my progress in the Whole Prey section! They woman I got them from also gave me 2 live rat pinkies that were a few days old. When we got home, I let the ferrets figure out what to do with them... it was their first time we live prey! I let Ernie in first (in a big rubber maid tub) with the first pinkie. I didn't expect him to do ANYTHING, but he sniffed it a bunch and gave it a few little nibbles, which gave it a small gash on it's back. They I let Ramona and the baby in. They baby only sniffed it, she was too worried about being in the container. Ramona gave it a bunch of bites, but it was like she didn't want to bite down to hard and hurt it. Finally when I put Didj in he did the trick. At first he was unsure... then he ate it by eating its head off!! It screamed and then twitched once it was decapitated, but *I* survived. The second pinkie wasn't was loud and Didj killed it fasted. No one would touch the pinkies once they were dead, except Didj, who munched down his prizes happily.

Obviously we have a lot of hunting to work on! I should have a nice supply of baby mice withing the next few months!

[mustelidmusk]

Hi!

No, I haven't died - although my job is trying to kill me.
In theory, things should return to normal at work after this wek is over!

. A lot of people feed bone at nif
Any more Progress with the bones? Looks like they letting them get a little hungry increases their interest in eating bone....otherwise, they'll eat their favorite parts and hold out for the next meal. A lot of people serve bones at night in the cage. They keep their ferrets caged at night, and then the ferrets have the bones to work on all night - and they you don't have to work about finding bones all over the house!

Houw did the prey go?

Also, if whole prey represents a significant part of their diet, we'll need to work the prey into the feeding schedule. Good luck with the mouse colony!

-jennifer