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Post by Forum Administrator on Jul 28, 2008 12:52:19 GMT -5
Its actually in the "newbie questions" section of the nutrition section  I need to move it to the "general feeding" section. |
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Post by mustelidmusk on Jul 29, 2008 22:37:57 GMT -5
Yep, I kinda posted ithe wrong spot   Pear, I have some emailed questions to some of the food companies - hopefully they willanswer soon. Are you at all interested in feedig mice (they don't have to be live)? The would be a good option for Apple and Kiwi. The reason why I say this is because the morevariety for Apple, the better. It's like people...when the immune system is not quite balanced, it's more likely to develop more tha one allergy. Constant exosure to any one thing is more likely to result in an llergy to that one thing. Mixing things up lessens the risk ofaditional allergy. Per our previous dicussion, you wlll want Apple and Kiwi on some dry foods for convenience and travel. The dry foods will be the toughest, but we'll get this nailed down. In the mean time, please let me know if you ave any questions/issues. Hug & kisses to Apple & Kiwi  -jennifer |
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Post by pear2apple on Jul 30, 2008 8:02:30 GMT -5
Actually Apple does eat live mice. I will also be starting Kiwi on that soonish. My boyfriend is supposedly breeding his own mice, however his 2 females have been "pregnant" over a month. They are about to be fed to the snakes since they aren't producing. I still can't feed full adults because Apple will not eat them, and if they are fast he is scared and runs away!
However, he is a decent killer, I think Kiwi will do well too. I am not opposed to feeding whole prey, but for now its not within my budget or really something I think I could handle (well). I think it will be more probable for me to feed raw and kibbles, and some live mice. I think Apple is afraid of feathers (even when I cut open a chick, he didn't want it, not even with his Ferrevite on it!).
Anyway thanks for helping with my search! I really appreciate it, I am not knowledgable enough about ferret foods to know which would be best (other than Evo). I will be buying the Ziwipeak and Stella & Chewys soon. I will be buying S&C lamb steaks since Apple doesn't really care for beef, and then Venison or Lamb Ziwipeak? Venison I guess since I'm getting the S&C lamb, huh?
I still have the NV though, that is going well. I have Kiwi eating some of that, very little, and also the KMR that is leftover after Apple gets his meds mixed with it. Apple still loves his NV, he has the YUM face when he eats it. So fun!
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Post by mustelidmusk on Jul 30, 2008 22:46:43 GMT -5
Hi Pear, definitely try the venison. Also, some beef would be good as well.....you can put small pieces of the beef steaks in with the lamb steak pieces once you get going on the freeze-dried.
I'm still cracking up about Apple and the large mouse that scared him!!! The reason why it's so funny is I can just picture my one of my boys doing the same thing!
Also, i seems to me that my girls are more prey-oriented than my boys. Keep working with Kiwi on the NV rabbit. She may accept it a little more quickly if you mix a bit od inced chicken in it (cut scraps off of chicken you get for yourself, cut the into teeny bits and mix it with the rabbit - for kiwi only, of course. The rabbit NVis a bit dry, o a small amount of water (or KMR) is not a bad thing. A couple drops of Salmon oil with a little oive oil mght help palaatability for Kiwi. Has she gained any weight yet???
The antlers may become more important since the easiest bones to eat are chicken...so.....if you feed mice that are not full adults, you'll want to offer some bone - but not chicken.
It's going o take awhile to sort all this out, but with patience, we'll get there.
This and last week are being the pits for me, so I'm getting a bit behind on things. Hang tight, get some of the freeze-dried foods. See if Apple will acept the freeze-dried tuff in small chunks by itself. If not, mix some tiny bits abd crumbs in with his kibble. I think he may jst eat the stuff "as is" since he has been very flexible with dry foods.
Continue o workon Kii with the Rabbit and the Lamb. I's a good, complementary food combination. Also, try to find some non-liver organ meats that are not chicken. (Turkey might be OK for Appe, but it's tough to tell right now.) If the fresh organ meats freak you out, please let me know.....we can fnd other options!
-jennifer
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Post by pear2apple on Aug 4, 2008 10:09:55 GMT -5
Also, i seems to me that my girls are more prey-oriented than my boys. Keep working with Kiwi on the NV rabbit. She may accept it a little more quickly if you mix a bit od inced chicken in it (cut scraps off of chicken you get for yourself, cut the into teeny bits and mix it with the rabbit - for kiwi only, of course. The rabbit NVis a bit dry, o a small amount of water (or KMR) is not a bad thing. A couple drops of Salmon oil with a little oive oil mght help palaatability for Kiwi. Has she gained any weight yet??? The antlers may become more important since the easiest bones to eat are chicken...so.....if you feed mice that are not full adults, you'll want to offer some bone - but not chicken. EDIT: Fabulous, Kiwi ate some NV mix without any Ferrevite on it. But not enough. We're going on 6 hours without any food but the Ferrevite needed to clip her nails and take photos. Overnight I am sticking 10 kibbles into the cage, and then putting the raw in too. Hang tight, get some of the freeze-dried foods. Also, try to find some non-liver organ meats that are not chicken. (Turkey might be OK for Appe, but it's tough to tell right now.) If the fresh organ meats freak you out, please let me know.....we can fnd other options! I haven't added any chicken to Kiwi's NV. I pretty much let her and Apple share it from the same plate. Though they won't eat at the same time, I let Kiwi watch Apple and then bring her over to try it. She will lick from my finger without resistance, but without the Ferrevite, she won't eat much. I just made a new mix: NV rabbit and lamb, KMR, salmon cat food (its real salmon), some beef baby food left over from Apple's sickness and then some salmon oil sprinkled on top. Apple ate that last night. I took away the Evo for about 6 hours but still Kiwi would not voluntarily eat it. I might try again tonight. I refilled the kibble this morning. |
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Post by mustelidmusk on Aug 5, 2008 9:17:07 GMT -5
Iwould stay away from thechicken since Apple can't have any! It will just comlicate your feedingprogram!
With Kiwi, she may eat better in a feeding den (dark, eclsoed area_ like and old box with 3 flapsfolded down tomake an entrance.
Also, when you give kibble, cut back on the amount to let Kiwi get a little hungey. Yoy want that bowl to be empty when it's time to feed raw.
Give it a try, and maybe he'll pick up the pace!
-jennifer
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Post by pear2apple on Aug 5, 2008 18:42:56 GMT -5
With Kiwi, she may eat better in a feeding den (dark, eclsoed area_ like and old box with 3 flapsfolded down tomake an entrance. Also, when you give kibble, cut back on the amount to let Kiwi get a little hungry. You want that bowl to be empty when it's time to feed raw. I thought about that too, I'm about to take away the kibble for the rest of the night, and leave out the raw for them. Apple's still pretty slow taking it but I think maybe he is expecting to be hand fed still. But I refuse to do that through his whole meal! When he gets hungry, he eats! Kiwi, apparently, will hold out for kibble. I have a few "dens" all over the place. 2 boxes that are on their sides, with the flaps in front making it dark in there, for this specific purpose of eating treats or food in there. Apple uses them, sometimes Kiwi does. As soon as I decide on which freeze-dried I want, this will be easier. |
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Post by pear2apple on Aug 5, 2008 21:58:09 GMT -5
I wanted to add that the vet and I decided Kiwi was 3-4 years old, I'm thinking 3 years based on her teeth and face. I really need to get her chewy NBones or raw asap because her teeth look really yellow, I want that cleaned up! But she is healthy otherwise, and starting the switch is taking awhile. She's so tough!
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Post by mustelidmusk on Aug 6, 2008 14:37:47 GMT -5
Yes, the little girls can be quite the little scrappers - they seem to be pretty gutsy compared to many of the boys. I know my to girls run the show  |
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Post by pear2apple on Aug 11, 2008 10:44:21 GMT -5
I've found the Taurine at a health foods store, FINALLY! After searching for months, I randomly walk into a vitamin store at the mall and there it is! And not expensive either!! They are 500mg pills and I believe I should be giving half that daily, I will be crushing up the pills to sprinkle on the food. Now I just need a hammer Also, it seems I am putting out very little effort to get Kiwi switched! Just taking away the kibble for like 24hours she has decided to start eating the NV on her own! I knew she liked it, just needed a little push to eat on her own. Plus, I am mixing up the NV with new things randomly, so hopefully it tastes different for them everytime and thats exciting. Last time I added salmon cat food, and this time a jar of Beef baby food. I need to buy more, but they are never on sale! Its like 75 cents for 1 jar of meat baby food, and then veggie is 45 cents! What the heck? Thats what I wanna know! Ehhhh I guess I can suck it up and go to Walmart!! Every now and then I will be adding KMR or just giving them 1/4 cup of that to share. I don't want them to use that as a meal replacement, just as an added goodness since they both love it! I am still keeping the Evo Red Meat bites out all the time. As soon as I get something freeze-dried, then I will finish this forever. I also have some other kibble samples that I am feeding separately to Apple and Kiwi during play time. It will be nice to have them on the same food always. Buckeye Bash is coming up, pretty excited for that and to see everyone. I will be buying Ziwipeak soon, hopefully they both like it, otherwise its headed to a soupie! They WILL eat it one way or another! I'm probably going to wait to buy that until after the Bash because maybe there are sales there for NBones or something better. We'll see! |
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Post by mustelidmusk on Aug 11, 2008 21:37:09 GMT -5
Remember, the N-bones have chicken . You should keep Apple away from the chicken for a while. I 've ordered some antler treats so hopefully I'll have a full package for you. - they will absorb the fish oil readily, so you can make them VERY palatable Plus the antler is a good teeth cleaner. If I can get time, I need to pick up some more stuff for my brats - the ground trachea rounds make good chews - the whole ones are too hard. The trachea rounds are also porous too. If I don't get to the store, I can bring the rest of what I have. It's so cool that Kiwi is eating the raw!!!!   I still cannot find a good allery-free kibble for Apple...they all have tons of carbs even if they're grain free & chicken free But, by the time you get into the freeze-dried meats, think you kids will soon be ignoring the kibble anyway - mine dropped kibble like a hot potato! It's so much fun to watch your ferrets get excited about healthy food!!! You really don't need to add the taurine every day- especially if you feed some fresh heart meat, which may be hard to find other than chicken. This is why I figured the taurine supplements added several times per week would be good for your kids. As far as switching to freeze-dried does - it's easy - just crumble the dry food in with the kibble an initially make the crumbs small enough so they can't really avoid the stuff (We owners can be bratty too!!!) Besides, most ferrets that eat raw are pretty accepting of the freeze-dries foods. You'll have a blast watching them tray all sorts of new stuff!!!! -jennifer |
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Post by pear2apple on Aug 25, 2008 9:22:05 GMT -5
Kiwi's New Diet:
Stella & Chewy's Freeze Dried Steaks: beef and lamb
Nature's Variety Raw Frozen: venison, lamb, beef, rabbit
Whole Life dehydrated treats: venison, lamb, salmon
Pingsford Porridge Red
Bravo's Freeze Dried lamb liver
Freeze Dried Beef Trachea
Velvet Antlers
Enough Evo Red Meat bites to transition to all freeze dried
Various raw meats, various freeze dried options, various dehydrated meats
POgOs: mouse and rabbit
Salmon Oil
Foamy Fries: beef and (maybe) molasses
This is pretty much all Kiwi will be eating. I'm thinking about also buying Ziwipeak, but haven't really thought about it yet. Good chance I will buy that though, and at the same time stock up on some other stuff. Nothing is for sure yet.
Kiwi has sniffed the lamb treats and the S&C but I don't think she actually ate any. When I made the Pingsford Red, I don't think she ate anyway either. Maybe she will this morning, but she did sniff it a few times. She likes the Dogswell duck jerky. I will be buying more of that.
I don't know what it will be like trying to switch her to raw meat, but I want to start that this week. The rabbit will take forever to thaw, so asap when I get home I'm going to sit it out, probably on the counter to speed up the process. But not too long of course!
She really needs to start on the raw and some bones because her teeth are still kinda dirty. But she eats the NV now with no problem. I think it will be easiest to go from wet to less wet/raw and then to the dry foods with her. I'm hoping the more she watches Apple, the more she will figure it out.
She loves her Foamy Fries and almost any type of kibble. Of course, I am phasing out the Evo, but she does enjoy that! She loves to steal treats from Apple, so I am counting on that to get her interested in the POgOs and other dehydrated treats!
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Post by pear2apple on Aug 25, 2008 21:53:05 GMT -5
It seems Kiwi has regressed from the NV now to just the Evo kibble. I took it away, and I guess Apple has found some new stash spots I haven't found yet! So she is eating something, but its not the NV anymore. I made a soupie of the NV, PP Red, KMR, beef baby food and S&C beef steaks. I made too much PP Red, so I just made a new mix to bring them back. I don't know why Kiwi won't try the new mix. She must have a stash somewhere I haven't found because she's not even tried the mix tonight. Would it be ok to stop the NV and just feed S&C and other freeze-dried and dehydrated meats? With the occasional live and raw? I don't know. This was working so well for awhile, I just know she likes the NV. I don't want to waste what I already have mixed up, but I don't know how to get her to try it again. I put some on her nose and she licked that, but not really in to it anymore. The rabbit is *almost* thawed out. Tomorrow night should be good to cut it up, feed, and then slice it up for Thursday night dehydrating! Yay! I'm excited. There is def some bone in there, perhaps its the neck? Not sure yet. It is 3lbs of rabbit though! So I need new suggestions to bring Kiwi back to the raw. I know she will like it! She took a dehydrated lamb chunk from me tonight!  EDIT: After writing this post I made their nighttime meal then put them in their cage for the night. As a last thought, I stuck some Ferrevite on top. That got Kiwi licking! So I guess I just have to resort to feeding her this with the Ferrevite just to bring her back after all the changes. Hopefully she gets moving on the freeze dried and dehydrated herself! |
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Post by mustelidmusk on Aug 26, 2008 20:24:55 GMT -5
Sometimes ferrets that are transitioning will stop eating the raw food for a while. They usually get back into it in a couple of days. In fact, my brat will start getting a little less interested in polishing off the raw, so they are days when I'll offer freeze-dried only. When the wet raw is offered again, they're into it!
Ferrets can do fine on the freeze-dried alone...they main thing is balance - you want to use the treats as treats and feed the balanced diets as their main meals.
You can use the ferretone or a few drops of the salmon or flax oil on top of the raw to get Kiwi going. You can also try making a rather dry mix of some freeze-dried crumbled meats coated and squished into kibble-sized bits of the NV frozen raw.
Put these kibble-sized bits out on a flat plate and spread them out so they're easy for kiwi to pick up.
I think she'll probably get back into the fresh raw pretty readily. But she maky be intrigued and a bit confused by dry food, new smells, and new textures. Just keep an eye on her weight to make sure she's eating.
If the kids are reluctant to try the freeze-dried foods, crumble some up and put it in with the evo read bites...the freze-dried crumbled food is tough for them to avoid when it's in the kibble. So they usually develop a taste for it pretty quickly.
I'll be watching your threads more closely with the changes.
-jennifer
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Post by pear2apple on Aug 26, 2008 20:43:40 GMT -5
OMG!!!! So, I bought that 3lb raw rabbit and its been in the freezer ever since. Yesterday I thawed it out (took almost 2 days) and today I started going through it and cutting up the meat into different sections: thin strips for dehydrating, neck/spine/ribs for teeth cleaning, legs for a meal, chunk meat for a meal, and then excess fat or skinny pieces to make into a "soup". During my chopping I decided to cut the ribs into 3 sections. I put 2 sections on a plate, stuck them in the bathtub then put Apple and Kiwi in there. Kiwi starts sniffing right away!! She was sooo interested! I walked away to get the Ferrevite, knowing she'd need it to really peak her interested. Apple sniffed but was confused, maybe he wasn't hungry he did just eat an hour ago. I dribbled some on and Kiwi went to work! She picked it up and dragged it away! She started chewing on the fat/skin layer! She actually was biting in to the BONE!!! OMG! Of course, I was scrambling for my camera until I remembered I left it at my boyfriend's place  So no photos this time. But wow I was so excited!!! I guess she won't be such a tough switch after all! Maybe she's just been waiting for the "real" raw this whole time! She's not too interested in the freeze-dried yet, but I continue to put out the raw/PP mix this week as well as freeze-dried on top of the kibble. I can't wait until I don't have to feed the kibble anymore!!!  |
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So no photos this time. But wow I was so excited!!! I guess she won't be such a tough switch after all! Maybe she's just been waiting for the "real" raw this whole time! She's not too interested in the freeze-dried yet, but I continue to put out the raw/PP mix this week as well as freeze-dried on top of the kibble.