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Post by Forum Administrator on Oct 17, 2008 22:54:20 GMT -5
How are things going? Any new progress? That is great that Hershey liked the veal, btw!  |
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Post by mustelidmusk on Oct 18, 2008 0:40:30 GMT -5
You can try a little canned pumkin (not the spiced pie filling - use a bit of the unspice plain canned pumpin. I wouldn't be too paranoid about the freeze-dried with they way Hershy has been behaving  . That will help too. Wing tips may help. Some of this is just adjusting the stomach to new protiens/foods. If you can find some montmorillonite/bentonite clay, a couple of pinched in their food will help- IF you can get them to eat the coated meats. (Hershy hate soup!) Another option is to try some Frozen raw complete diets such as Nature's Variety. It's fully balanced ground raw with bone, organ meats, etc. It's a great way to provide a balanced option while the kids are learning to deal with bones, mice, organ meats, or whatever your longer term feeding goals may be. The NV has some montmorillonite clay in it. (I feed mostly NV frozen raw and freeze-dried raw, some raw meaty bones.) Another thing that can be used is a bit of metamucil. I've never tried this with my kids , but I know some ferret owners who've used t on their kids. I don't know if it's sugary...if it's sugary, you may want to pass on it. Again, the freeze-dried is not a bad option since coating meat in someting weird is more likely to disturb Hershy's new-found love for meat than a small amount of freeze-dried raw. Gart introducing the wing tips, and the wing bones. I bet Hershy will be running off to hide them somewhere even if she's not sure she wants to eat them!!! Good luck with the wing tips!!! -jennifer |
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Post by suds on Oct 18, 2008 8:56:20 GMT -5
How are things going? Any new progress? well things are going great now (except for the poo lol but so far no accidents out of the litter boxes so its all good to me) Jen I put another shoebox in the cage again for feeding before they would just into 1 to eat so I took it out. Since they been getting only raw they been fighting lol so now I put a dish in the cage and they grab a peace and run in there own box to eat still alot of chattering but seems to work better with 2. I gave them a small wing and cut in half then cut slits in the meat they didnt eat much of it but I can see where they where chewing on them at least. another thing I was watching them they would every chance they had steal each others wing and stash them it was funny to watch at least. I will put another in again when its feeding time this evening . I will only put the wing in at first then later put cut up meat in ( the meat is now about 3/4 of a inch in size. there poo did seem firmer but then I give them pupmkin every friday since sheading started it mite be the reason. Iam not to concearned at this point since I knowhat its from and they defiently are not dehydrated and getting into trouble and playing like crazy. I will look for some NV local to use untill we get them on a balanced raw diet I dont want to use it long term . I will put a couple more forenging cups out filled with freese dried as treats in them this way they have to work for it rather them be free fed and get full befor feeding times this morning I picked up the stuff from the butcher its a big bag of chicken, turky and beef parts I need to rresearch and see how to identify some of this stuff lol but it had livers , gizzards I think back bone and knecks and a few other things I dont reconise as well as lots of beef trimming's. I I tried the freese dried chicken livers and still no go I tries the fresh livers small (i think is chicken)and bigger 1 ( ithink is trky) and they would not touch them . tomorrow I will try and hide some in there meats. BTW Hershy now is stealing my food!!! JD always did I had to watch him like a hawk espeacally sweets. But I had to fight Hershy over a chocolate chip cookie chased her for 5 mins then had a hard time prying it from her jaws even hissed at me lol never happened before with her . |
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Post by mustelidmusk on Oct 18, 2008 11:18:23 GMT -5
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Post by suds on Oct 19, 2008 14:02:59 GMT -5
I hate when my post get ate up or the ferts help me typeing and erase them to...
well so far they just stash and play with the wings .I cut 1 down the middle and cut slits in the meat again they did play tug a war with 1 of the halfs then stashed them. this morning I cut the wing again down the middle and cut the bone in half to expose the bone narrow some one did clean out the bone narrow but I dont know who . I will try cutting the wing and bones in smaller peaces and see what they do. I give them the wings befor any other meat chunks hoping hunger wil get them eating it. maybe it is too soon or to big , but they do seem to be interested in them.
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Post by Forum Administrator on Oct 19, 2008 15:35:20 GMT -5
Grrrrrr...... I just lost my last message BEFORE I got to pos it for you. Now I'm out of time and will need to retype later. A tip: ALWAYS highlight the text in your post (BEFORE you post it!) and hit "copy". This way, even if your post gets eaten, all you have to do is start a new post and hit "paste".  Trust me, I learned this the hard way, works like a charm and no more "eaten" posts. |
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Post by mustelidmusk on Oct 19, 2008 22:37:38 GMT -5
What? "Tips"  ? I thought Guili was talking about WING tips Anyway, you ca try the following: cut the tipips into small kibble-sized chunks - they'll be OK even if they swallow them whole. Put a few pieces spread out on a flayt plate and leave them with the these piees for a while. I had to do the "hunger thing" with them....let them get a little hungry... before mine would eat bone. This is the time of the year to work hard on introducig new things....the ferrets are beefin up for winter- they have extra fat they can burn,and they're into eating. wings are cartilage and rubbery - they can get stuck on teeth....my Kachina actually does better with bone than cartilage since she panics if cartilage gets stuck on one of her teeeth - the littl princess thnks it's going to kill her - spolied brat - mommy comes running to the rescue every time - she has me well-trained   CHicken backs are really GREAT for bone training if the ferrets don't like the cartilage. The backs can be cut into stips with kitchen scissors (designed for bone cutting), a big knife you don't care about or a hunting knife. The bone in chicken backs is pretty soft, and it crunches up just like kibble, which is more familiar sound and texture. It just depends on the ferret!!!! Backs are a bit bony (less meat, so you'll want to serve some muscle meat with backs. Cornish game hens are smaller than regular chickens, so they also a reasonable option for intoducing bone. The frozen raw diets are ground, and they have bits of bone in them, so this may help as well. another thing you can do is BOIL bones in water...this softens them. If the water runs dry and the bones are dry cooked by mistake, they become HARDER and may splinter. However, if you simmer bones long enough in wwater, the bones can become soft enought to crush between your fingers. You can reduce the leftover stock (simmer it until the a lot of the water evaporates), put it in the fridge, and it solidify into gelatin, which can be used in people and/or ferret soups - very nutritious. ) As your kids begin to eat this soft bone, you simmer the bones for lshorter periods of time to slowly let the bone beome harder. Here are some freeze-dried "Bone training"/teeth cleaning foods I started with and stll use: *** Oma's Pride trachea rounds - ground trachea form into medallions -cut them into kibble-szed pieces and inrease the size of the pieces to eventually end up with strip-like shapes that promote gnawing with the back teeth. I mix these in with the crumbled freeze-dried Wysongs. All bigger chunks are fed from foraging cups. If you cannot find a local upplier for Oma's Pride, they will ship. If you're buying from them and shipping, I also recommend the turkey hearts - my brats ***LOVE*** those things! ***Bonus Velvet antler treats for small dog. Velvet antler is a great source of trace minerals, and the Antlers ( which shed anually anyway) are removed from the elk in farm-raised herd. The antlers are harvested when they still are growing and have the velvet, so the antler is softer than bone, and it has that nutrious skin layer with soft fur. The Bonus elk ranch is locate in Penrose Colorado where the ELk are very strong and healthy. The treats are sliced antler rounds, which are very pourous n the center. Salmon oil, ferretone, olive oil, etc. readily absorbs into the treats, but my brats instantly recognized them as food - they were hissing, sqeaking, etc. the first time they got these. No oil necessary. They can also be clipped into thn strips with wire cuters and mixed with freeze-dried or ground meats. I will send URL's in the next post - don't want to risk opening another window and posibly losing this post! In fact....I'llstart another message!!! -jennifer |
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Post by mustelidmusk on Oct 19, 2008 23:04:14 GMT -5
Glad I started a new post - I just got blown out of the browser www.bonusvelvetantler.com/scroll down until you see the small dog treats If you go to the home page, there's a list of retailers. But they will mail directly to you if there are no retailers near you. www.omaspride.com/products.htm#Freeze dried treats My brats ***LOVE*** the freeze-dried turkey heart treats!!!!!! SInce you're getting a bunch of stuff from the butcher, you may want to consider making foe ground complete diet. There's a great recipe in the web that has actually been sent to labs for nutritional analysis. Even if you don't want tget involved with this feeding option, I recomend that you frequent this site since I find it very informative - anyone who feeds raw can benefit from reading this site. The recipe: www.catnutrition.org/recipes.phpthe home page: www.catnutrition.org there's a link to " food making" at the top of the home page. Even if you don't make food, readng the food making section provides good insight to AAFCO standards and raw feeding, comparing food types for nutritional content, etc. Yay!!! I didn't lose my post!!!! -jennifer |
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Post by suds on Oct 21, 2008 6:14:13 GMT -5
Thanks for the links Jen I will check them out later tonight. I cut up a neck (think it was chicken) and JD went to town on the peaces Hershy still as far as I seen sniffs it then leaves it alone and follows me around untill I get the meat chunks out . I will try a olive oil coating tonight and see if she try that way. there poos are much better with the bone meal . question is toung is beef toung muscle meat or organ meat ? recap on what they have eaten so far. chicken thigh meat chicken breast meat ( not that crazy over it) chciken gizzards ( raw and freeze dried) beef soup cubes beef hamburger beef steak Veal ( they love it) pork ( chops and peaces from roast meat) Turkey ( ground. leg meat, breast meat) chciken and turky livers they will only eat if I hide very very tiney peaces in the meat chuncks (raw or freeze dried) the meat sise is now about 1.5 inches JD will eat bone from cut necks ( about 1/2 " ) Hershy and JD play with cut wings but still not eating just knawing on them. I have 4 forrenging cups out they get filled with wysons, and freeze dry patty peaces as treats to snakc on during the day at night I been leaving the wings in to snack on which they just play with so far . It seems every 3rd or fourth day the eat very little which seems to be normal from other threads I been following. I will continue what I have been doing for another week then mite fast them for a day and only give them rmb and liver after the fast and see if they will eat it then . mite try game hen or rabbit at this time. thanks again for all your help Jen |
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Post by mustelidmusk on Oct 22, 2008 9:05:13 GMT -5
Good plan - a little hunger always helps - sometimes just removing the freeze-died treats works - that might be enough for JD. Hershy may need a little stronger "encouragement" . Tongue is a muscle. But so is a heart, a gizzard, and some other "odd meats" that we may tend too think of as organs. There are 3 types of muscle: smooth, striated, smooth, and cardiac. striated = skeletal muscle smooth = visceral organ muscles cardiac = heart muscle "Organ meats" include: visceral muscular organs (such as gizzard) heart meat (good for taurine!) hormone secreting non-muscular organs, such as kidneys, liver, pancreas, thyroid, etc. all these different organ meats and muscle types add different nutrients to the diet. It can be difficult to find the hormone-secreting organs in the grocery store, which is why we stress the ability to eat liver -you can get it in the grocery store! For organ meat days, you'll want to provide different types of organs. For now, we need to get your kids eating them!!! keep working on the livver, and get some heart meats in there as well. AT least they're gnawing on the wings and getting them in their mouths. It takes time to work in the bone and organs, butif usually goes a little faster than the initial switch to muscle meat when ferrets like Hershey are stubborn abou it! Keep up the enrichments and have fun! -jennifer |
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Post by suds on Oct 24, 2008 18:46:42 GMT -5
haha I can be so dence somemtimes  I was feeding them heart and not knowing it !! When I get the scraps from the butcher they are all mixed in 2 big baggies I was throwing in small bits when i get the meat chunks out my mom seen them and told me they where hearts !! Duh!! i see it now lol well any way they eat them with no problems . and been getting a little every day is this bad for them ? .. now I know what they are I will only put them in once a week. I still have to hide the liver they will not touch it alone . And still not eating the bone but someone been eating the meat and tips off the wings overnight. the meat peaces are about 3/4 " question about the bone meal. I been covering the meats in it is there a pacific amount I should be giving them? can I give them too much ? should I be giving them fish oil for the omega 3 untill we get them on a true balanced diet ? I forgot to ask does "kidney beens" count as organ meat its a kidney? I seen JD chewing on 1 when used them for the dig box |
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Post by mustelidmusk on Oct 25, 2008 22:16:30 GMT -5
Yikes! Kidney beans are dried beans - and ferrets cannot digest them. If JD is prone to chewing on they, you should switch to rice in the dig box. I large piece of dried bean could easily cause and obstruction. In fact, ferrets have been know to die from obstructions caused by dried vegetable/corn in cheaper ferret foods.
Bone meal - you can overfeed bone- too much bone is tough on the kidneys. I don't think dusting chunks of meat will cause any issues.
Ideally, a raw meaty bone is 50% flesh and 50% bone
If you feed according to the 4 days of raw meaty bones, 2 days of meat/flesh, on day of organ meats per week, the breakdown looks like this:
4 parts muscle flesh
2 pts bone
1 part organ meats
Here's a visual representation that explains the breakdown:
M= muscle
B= Bone
O = organs
Day 1: Raw meat bones 1/2 M + 1/2 B
Day 2: Raw meat bones 1/2 M + 1/2 B
Day 3: Muscle meats 1/2 M + 1/2 M
Day 4: Raw meat bones 1/2 M + 1/2 B
Day 5: Raw meat bones 1/2 M + 1/2 B
Day 6: Muscle meats 1/2 M + 1/2 M
Day 7: Organ Meats 1/2 O + 1/2 O
If you cont up the M', B's, and O's, you get
M = 4
B = 2
O = 1
Does that make sense??? The key is that the RMB days are 50% meat and 50% Bone.
So as you can see, that would be quite a lot of bone meal to make up for all that bone. But keep in mind that bones have marrow inside and the are not as absorbable a powdered bone, so you can't replace bone with the same amount of bone meal.
If you try to substitute bone meal for bones, you'd need to feed soup since your kids aren't likely to eat wet bone paste!!!
Lets just work on getting them eating bones, and you can feed some NV balanced raw diet if you're super worried about the bone right now.
Fish oil - omega 3's...some people (myself included) feed about about 3 to 4 drops of fish oil per ferret each day. Use salmon oil, sardine oil fish body oils but do NOT use cod liver oil, which has too much vitamin A (I think it's too much A)
I'm working on the taurine for tomorrow - there are several people who want to know how much to feed - and there are no concrete data on what ferrets need.
-jennifer
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Post by suds on Oct 26, 2008 7:58:53 GMT -5
the kidney's got nixed the day I seen him chew on them . He went to the vets yesterday to be checked for adrenal. He has been extreemly hyper!!! He runs every where and into everything he is 10 times mroe hyper then Hershy. the way he runs around reminds me of the cartoon with the mouse speey lol so as a precaution I had him checked they did blood work I will get the results next week. But the vet said he seem to be in great health no swollen glands. and its just his personality he is like the energizer ferret now . lastnight i split the bones in half length wise .. JD chews and licks them Hershy will lick them and chew very little with olive oil on them . I am wondering if maybe they still dont have the jaw strength to chew them ? Or just being lazy ? I noticed with the bigger peaces of meat they have dificulty tearing them at times . I am not to worried about not enough calcium yet . more worried about giveing to much. I have plenty of wysons and freezedried to balance out the diet if need be for now. I think Hershy is hooked on raw meats now . I am going to go to the fish market and chinatown monday and see what wierd things I can find for them . hoping I can find odd things like kidneys, pancreas and thyroids there they do tend to eat things we all generaly turn our noses up at lol. |
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Post by mustelidmusk on Oct 27, 2008 0:02:53 GMT -5
Do you know what bloodwork is being done? Last I knew (about 7 years ago) The adrenal panel is done only at University of Tennessee, and it usually takes a long time to get results since they run all the tests once a month. (Theres not much demand for the test, so they don't do them very often. This may have changed, so I'm curious to hear what's being done. I hope everything is OK. One of my first two boys I had years ago was adrenal with no hair loss - I had him tested because he was hyper. He had just turned 4. I'll keep my fingers crossed! My kids like freeze-dried fish - you can get those tiny drie shrimp at the Asian markets, and it's cheaper than at the pet store Whatever you buy, jusyt make sure it's not loaed with salt or some perservatives/spices! As far as eating chunks of meat and bone goes. There were times I helped my brats learn to eat chunks of food. I hang on to one end of the strip and postition the meat sideways in the mouth to get the meat between to large jagged teeth in the back of the mouth. The the ferret will start to cut the meat with very small, fast chomping. (WATCH YOUR FINGER TIPS ) This helped them learn how to handle chunks of meat and wings. Again, you may have to let them gt hungry to get them eating wings. Also, you can simmer bones to the point where they get really soft and crumble between your fingers. Tug--of war with wings can work well too. My brats actually prefer the bone to have no meat, so you may want to try one skniny wing bone with no meat on it. offer the ends of the bones to see if they'll try to chew it. I hand feed treats. And I started offering bones as well. I would put the bone ends into their mouths to "ask" then to try it. I know that sounds weird, but my kids will try just about anything I offer them now. I did some reading to day and still have not found evnough info to make a recommendation on the taurine. So, I still have some more research to get through. Keep trying to offer them bone with and without meat on it. It's funny how they'll crunch kibble but resist biting bone! -jennifer |
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Post by suds on Oct 28, 2008 17:25:18 GMT -5
to be honest I am not sure where they send it even I do recall she said I was lucky because she only sends them out the 2cnd and last mondays of the month. I will ask when they call me. She realy didnt think the test was warranted I insisted on it for peace of mind same as the xrays so at least we had a base if needed in the future and to be honest if the person who worked the ultra sound was there I probly would have made them do it to. and still mite get it done , just to cover all bases, He litteraly bounces off the wall for hours sometimes , but has not been agressive or bit me since the first month I got him. It could just be his personality and with the raw diet has much more energy I just get paranoid at times so lastnight and today they ate very little . I am thinking its probly normal they do seem to always have a day that they dont want to eat much just wierd its was lastnight and today. I will see what happens tonight and tomorrow befor I panic lol. The bones are still slow going I tried so far chicken knecks,and wings I am thawing a game hen I will try that tommorrowthis weekend I will try rabbit I got some when I went into fishtown in the city along with lots of other things I cant wait to try. is smelts and sardines a source of calcium if fed hole to? I got a few bags of fresh smelts I love to fry them eat them like potatoes chips watching movie's or games so if they dont like them its no biggy lol. |
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