Ernie, Didjeridu and Ramona start the switch!

[mustelidmusk]

Some ferrets will get feaked out and stop eating when you're not the one taing care of them.

Here are some things that will add weight.....

* 1/2 tablspoon of heavy cream daily (lots of fat and lower lactose) Back off on the quantity if your ferret gets the runs.

* egg yolk - split one yolk between all your kids two times per week.

* i/4 - 1/2 teaspoon of olive oil with a couple drops of salmom oil. daily

* Pingford's porridge is GREAT for adding weight. Look it up on google.

Spend lots of time with Ernie, he needs ome reassurance now!

-jennifer

[animalsgetrevenge]

Thank you Jennifer, that was really helpful. I have been hand feeding Ernie twice a day to make sure he eats. I know he can eat on his own, but this way I can make sure he is eating MORE than he would on his own. He has definitely gained weight, YAY!. He is still a little thin but I am much more comfortable with where he is at now!

At this point I have them all eating New Season's ground raw chicken mix. I talked to both store and found that it is generally made of 70% RMB, 10% meat and 20% organs, but this ratio does varies. At this point, this is really the only thing Ernie will eat. So I have everyone eating this (life is crazy right now, I don't have 4 hours each day to make them each their own meat) until Ernie is back to his normal weight. I calculated it out so that I can SLOWLY transition them off the ground raw food, probably over the course of 3-4 months, I want to go really slowly for Ernie's sake. I found how much RMB, meat and organs I will need to add to the mix to make it 75% RMB, 15% meat and 10% organs...

I plan on starting with all NS ground raw chicken mix until Ernie is back to normal and eating 100% on his own.
Then make up the mix cotaining:
Meats: chicken, beef, pork, lamb, cornish game hen.
Organs: beef liver, pork liver, chicken liver and hearts.
RMB: chicken and cornish game hen.
(I will adventually be adding mice, rats, and possibly rabbit to the diet, but its been hard enough having a freezer full of meat, let alone animal we used to keep as pets! This will take a lot of time)

And suggestions on what to add? I have already done the calculations on how much of each I should mix together to even out the rations from the NS raw mix.

I plan on slowly adding this new mix to the NS raw mix, slowly adding more quantity and letting it go from mushy to chunky.

Any suggestions?

[mustelidmusk]

It'd good to hear that Ernie is putting the weight back on .
If he still is reluctant to eat on his own, you can try giving him a dark, private feeding den to eat in (a small cardboard box with 3 falps folded in to leave an opening might give Ernie a save den for eating . The raw food does bring out instinctual eating behaviors, and eating alone is very normal. (Eating in groups is NOT a preferred natural feeding tendency! This may help Ernie accept the raw foods more readily. It helpe 2 of mine a whole lot.


Chicken gizzards are good as well. Sometimes you can find package of chicken hearts, gizzards, and liver at the grocery store.

Once you get your kid situated with their basic diet, which will take time, you can look for items tht you ma want to serve less often - more a a treat since the different meats can bedifficult to find.
If you have any ethnic grocery stores, you can sometimes find different cuts of meat or things like kidney, sweet breads, tongue, goat, rabbit, etc. the meat selection in our neighborrhood grocery store is borig compared to the specialty stores.

If you'd like to serve abbit, Hare Today on the web sells whole ground rabbit (fur and all. It's very popular with ferret owners, and it will already be ground. Alternatively, Nature's variety has a frozen rabbit diet that's no worse thanlookingat a hamburger . You can get this in 1-ounce medallion servings.
That's what my kids get for rabbit!

-jennifer

[animalsgetrevenge]

I did try the box idea a few weeks ago and they like it but I realize Ernie was going in there to SPIT OUT the chunks he didn't like. I thought he was going in there to eat in privacy but when then one day I realized he was trying to fake me out and he had the others eating his leftovers for him so I wouldn't find out. He is so sneaky! I will try this in the future though, I just need to find some new boxes so they can have at least two to share.

I never thought of looking at an ethic store, thats a fantastic idea! At this point I only want to feed hormone free/cage free/free range/organics/etc. Do you think one kind of store would be more likely to carry this? Any ideas?

I will probabaly start using rodentpro and haretoday once they start eating more variety. I am picking up a chest freezer this week which will give me more room to store food!

[mustelidmusk]

Health/natural food stores such as Whole Foods and Wild Oa wll have the organic meats - be aware they're expensive! and a lot of times they have premium/Americanized/yuppy cuts of meat only.

Butchers may carry organic mets. If you go talk to them, they may be willing to save and sell you scrap meats from the butchering process (chicken backs, meat scraps, etc) for a cheap price (of cour, you'd need to as about and see the scraps to make ure there's enogh good meat content - they DO make sausage from scraps - kinda the all- American mystery meat ---the hotdog )

Hare Today ( on the web) has lots of good variety too

Yes, the aching someties happens wth the feeding dens rather than eating. And, yes, ferres can be little brats

I assume Ernie is still eating kibble?
You may want to provide only a little kibble at night (as long as Ernie's weight is still OK). In the mornig, feed the raw. It may be enough to get Ernie eating on his own!

-jennifer

[animalsgetrevenge]

At this point I am buying all my meat at New Seasons; it is like Whole Foods but local. Since I am vegan, I don't have any experience buying meat. I buy what they have cheapest there and think it is reasonable since my fuzzies don't eat a ton (and I have nothing to compare it to except buying kibble). There is a freezer in their pet section with chicken, pork, and beef livers, chicken hearts, chicken necks and backs, and ground chicken (all parts). All those products in the pet section come from the meat department and are cheaper but sometimes I buy chicken in the HUMAN section, too, to get different cuts.

I also live near a Whole Foods and Trader Joe's but they tend to be more expensive thatn New Seasons.

Of course when Ernie is doing better I will start adding more variety to their diet.

As for kibble, they are completely off. We started the switch on the 12 of July and they have been without kibble since the 17th of July, except for wo of Ernie's meals about two weeks ago, he was getting thin and I was worried. I think tonight I might try putting him in his kennel to eat or placing the kennel on the top half of their FN cage and having him eat on his own. Hopefully he will feel more comfortable this way

Thanks for all the help Jennifer!

[mustelidmusk]

You're doing fantastic - the kibble is gone already .

I know it's work when you have a stubborn little fert to deal with....seems like there's one in every group!


I've got my fingers crossed that Ernie will eat more if he's by himself. Two of my brats eat about twice as much in a den covered by a loose-fitting blanket with their heads poking out!!!

Also try offering a few chunky bits - some ferts that aren't that wild about soup take an immediate likeing to smaller chunks they can pick up and chew. I'd they offering a cunk the (about 1/1/4-1/2 inch cube) and see if any of your kids will take it.

-jennifer

[animalsgetrevenge]

I'm about to give him dinner in his kennel.... keep those fingers crossed!

Also, I had been feeding tiny chunks of chicken but I think that may have been his original reason to stop eating. I'm not positive but I think I just moved to fast for him and then he decided he didn't want to eat anything. In his mind, the wetter the better. Each meal I am adding just a tiny bit of water, less each time.

As far as my other two Didjeridu and Ramona:
Ramona doesn't seem to be super crazy about anything. She will eat small chunks of meat.
Didjeridu will eat larger chunks of meat. He LOVES bone. I think he would be happy if thats all I fed him; he actually prefers to have meatless bones, but i know he needs the meat too.

Right now I am feeding the ground raw chicken (meat,bones,organs from New Seasons) to everyone because I haven't had the time for much else, my life is sort of flipped upside down at this point and with Ernie's stubborn eating habits I haven't had time to make them all their own individual meal exactly how they would like it!

But each day we are slowing moving forward. I would like things to go faster but I don't want to push my cranky old man (he is only around 5 as far as I know but he thinks he is 99)...

I do have plans on switching my doggy girl to raw once I have the ferrets at a more constant diet!

[animalsgetrevenge]

Alright, last night I tried the kennel. I fed Ernie his ground chicken mix first. He did eat it in the kennel, but he didn't eat much. Once he decided he was done I held him and the bowl so he would eat more. Then I fed Ramona and Didjer up there. I gave them chunks of chicken leg, about 1 inch by 1/2 inch. They gobbled them up. Ramona ate quite a bit, I was suprised. This morning I am going to do the same thing.

[Forum Administrator]

Excellent! Sounds like a plan. Let us know how it goes

[animalsgetrevenge]

I bought Ernie some Organic Heavy Whipping Cream yesterday and luckily he loves it. For the past two meals I have fed them chicken leg. Ernie has been getting tiny pieces of meat/skin about the size of 1/2 to 1 piece of kibble and he was been okay with that when I am feeding him. I still don't trust him on his own. Ramona and Didj have been eating bigger chunks of chicken leg, about 1/2 inch by 1/2 inch.

One concern that has come up is that sometimes when Didj and Ramona eat bone, particularly the cartalige-y end parts of wings and legs, sometimes it gets stuck in there mouth because of their teeth. Luckily I always watch them eat and am there to help them, but is this normal? Is it because they aren't very experienced bone eaters?

[Forum Administrator]

Its probably because you are cutting the leg up. I would get them eating a WHOLE leg bone asap. They will cut the bone into appropriately sized pieces that wont get stuck. Im not really a fan of cutting up bone, I'll split a bone in half (to expose the marrow) but I dont like to crush or chop it up. It just increases the chances it will get stuck in their mouth and choke.

If they are eating the chopped bone they should be able to progress to the whole bone pretty easily. If they have trouble crack the boen in half (lengthwise) and expose the marrow. But work the up to eating just a whole bone.

This should help

[mustelidmusk]

My brats getcartilae stuck on their eeth too! And the start chewing away and drooling to dislodge it.

At first, my kids would panic. So i would rescue them by removing the cartlage from the tooth. I didn't want them getting stressed about it since they just started to learn to eat meat! Over time, I let them handle the cartilage situation a little longer and longer. Plus, chewing whole bone helps to dislodge the cartilage.
They're now patient when this happens and can work through the problem, which no longer happens very often, themselves.

It's a learning thing my brats ad to go through.

Sounds like Ernies has really tarted progressing nicely, and I'm glad he loves the cream - it's nice to have a little treat that helps ad some weight when you feel he needs it.

-jennifer

[mustelidmusk]

I've been continuing to monitor your thread since Giuli is swamped trying to get th web site done.

Also, just to let you know, I'll be working 12-hour days for the rest of August. And I will also have limited access to the web on the weekends.
Between Giuli and me, well keep you covered!!!

-jennifer

[animalsgetrevenge]

Thanks guys. I know we are all busy. I don't expect much, I feel like you two have already helped us so much!

Thanks