Animalfarm2006's Switching Thread

[AnimalFarm2006]

Dakota finaly tasted the meat. FINALY. She is timid about the idea, but atleast she is taking it.

Yay!!!!

[Heather]

CONGRATULATIONS
This is great news. Patience...that's what it's all about. Keep at her, she will eat it eventually.

ciao

[AnimalFarm2006]

Okay so here is a little update!

I have not fed meat because I have not had the money to get anything. I refroze my meat mix, and have not been able to unfreeze it due to having some person psychology type issues.

The update is that they are working on eating full grown mice. I am trying to kill off my older females to replace by younger females. Last night after a good two hours of no food, I fed them a white female that recently had only two babys. The babys are being fed by another parent. They ate about...haft of the female. The other haft is sitting at the top of the cage.


You know thoes paterns your get for the fn? I really dislike them. It is a great idea, but it just does not work for my guys. They hide mice under them, or they just aren't "big" enough to make the cage comfortable. I started using fleece to wrap around the plastic liners. It works ALOT better. Plus, I don't aft to wory about mice guts flying at me when I take the cage apart.

[Heather]

I'm sorry that you've had to put the raw feeding on hold. It's great that they're starting to eat whole adult mice though, anything is better than just kibbles. It would be nice if you could get them going again. It's very difficult for your Dakota to get used to eating meat if it's not available consistently for her to get accustomed to the flavour and texture.
I hope that you're able to get things back on track soon
ciao

[AnimalFarm2006]

Howdy again,

Ripply was awesome last night. I fed everyone a mouse, and ripply acualy ate a large pinkie by herself. She had been interested in food for a while, but had issues acualy eating the food with lelloo trying to steal it from her mouth.

They also had a full grown mouse last night. It wasn't eaten all the way, but they tried. Ripply played tug a war with me finaly ^.^

Anyway, I have to do a writting for college english, and I want to do it on raw vs kibble. Do you have any credited sites, like scienctific evidence type deal on the topic?

Thanks,
cara

[Heather]

You're not going to find any scientific studies. Most diet studies are done by the big kibble corp. The raw community doesn't have that type of money at their disposal. There are a number of good sites but they're the same as the information that you get here (information created by owners). There are some sites that offer up more technical information but you're not going to find any scientific studies that actually support raw
ciao

[AnimalFarm2006]

Howdy!

How do you like all this snow? We had our second big storm which was awesome.

Good news and Bad news. The fuzzys had some soup, and mice over the past few days. I ran out of food one night so they had to eat mice, and chicken mush or they didn't eat at all. Only a few kids even ate, but they had kibble in the morning anyway.

I took some videos of the ferrets playing in a tub of snow. ^.^ I will have to post everything on photobucket for you guys to look at it. Lee and Pix turned out to be snow demons. They made a tunnel and just kept running through and trying to widden it.

Bad news- My biggest dog at 45 lbs has that issue where his knee caps keep poping in and out. He is on meds for pain when and if he has pain, Glucosamine pills, Fish oil, and of course...A diet. Poor dog! XD Acualy all four of our dogs are on a diet.

So I was wondering what you knew about the whole knee cap issue and what holistic things could help him? We can't afford surgery at the moment.

[Heather]

Try looking through this site www.itsfortheanimals.com/ACL.HTM I'm certainly not advocating the diet (don't believe in grains for a carnivore's diet) but there are some interesting ideas and some possible supplements. I find that if you dog is in pain already you may indeed have to resort to surgery. You also have to know exactly what type of injury your dog has suffered. Some acl injuries are congenital (hereditary). My one male dog was that way. I managed his pain with a good raw diet, some minor supplements and trying to keep his weight down. I never did have to resort to surgery but his knee never popped out, it just caused him pain.
The fuzzies do love playing in the snow. I haven't quite figured out how to get my guys out to play during the winter and this year we haven't had enough snow for me to bring them in a batch (I fill the bathtub). I will like to see them playing.
Good luck with your dog
ciao

[AnimalFarm2006]

Hello again,

I feel as if i am in a a white out. TONS of snow here. Just to give you a clue, We are about 1 1/2 from DC.

Anyway, Are dogs strict carnivors like ferrets, or . I would love to feed my dogs more of a natural diet, but of course I only JUST got my mom into feeding the dogs only twice daily so I think asking for raw would push her a little too far.

Simbas knee's acualy pop in and out as he walks. It hurts him when he does a lot of activity, but he is managing it great. The vet said he ws born with it + he has always been stiff in his legs when getting up after sitting for a long time.

I know eventualy he is going to need surgery, but right now I am barely even getting paid.

There is no new activity for the ferrets, but I am going to do something for them today.

[Heather]

No, dogs aren't a strict carnivore like cats and ferrets, but the foundation diet is similar, they're just a bit more cooperative in the switching method ;D My guy's is getting 3 lbs of tripe tonight. Last night he ate a venison pelvis, it kept him happy for the whole day. Tomorrow he will probably be getting about 4 lbs of ground up raw fish and 1 lb of frozen veggies. Oh, my dog an irish wolfhound, weighs 161 lbs. Grown dogs eat between 2 and 3 percent of their desired weight. So if you had a dog that weighed 50 lbs, he would get 1.5 lbs a day of food.
Tumeric is a good natural pain reliever.
Hope you're enjoying your snow......I think all our usual snow has been staying in the US. We don't really have any up here
ciao

[AnimalFarm2006]

So...I am having issues with pixie. You know how most kits take to raw/whole prey easily? Pixie's new nick name is Pixie Demon.

You scruff her and she takes the skin off of your hands with all four feet full of cut nails. She's too smart to fall for the whole oil on the belly cutting nails trick, and also doesn't fall for the food on the lips/nose trick.

How do you get a ferret to be nice? She is terrible, but i am happy that she is starting to play with me. ^.^ It's a sign she's starting to trust in me.
I know that you are suppose to keep trying and trying, but how can you when she turns into the ferret from hell and you can't keep a hold of her?

Monster is on meds, so I am not going to force food on him until his ulcers clear up. Dakota finally tried a tiny piece of mouse, but refuse's to even touch mice when she is scruff-ed and forced. Ripply is at the stage where she will nibble at foods, and I try to give her access to the mouse every time i feed, but lelloo has a tendency to steal the food.

[Heather]

I have a couple of ferrets that you just don't scruff. Fun-Go Squiggly is the worst that I've ever had. He will try and bite you in a scruff. Give her time. I never use scruffing as a disciplinary measure, only to give meds and good things like fishy oils and such. That way they never associate being bad with being scruffed. Fun-Go is still a bit sketchy but he's getting better. We've been working at it for almost a year and a half. He's badly scarred mentally. He may never trust anyone truly but he's getting better. Trust isn't a forced thing, it takes a long time.
Keep offering the food to Monster, but don't make an issue of it. Just keep trying, it's going to take time but you've got little ones who are starting to lick and taste. That's a good thing
ciao

[AnimalFarm2006]

Hello again,

Here are some updates- I made them a weird soup. It's Hearts and Giblets of chicken thrown into a blender with three jars of lamb and gravy baby food with an egg and an egg shell ground up as thin as I could get it. I then froze it into three ice cube trays to the horror of my mother. XD I loved the reaction when she pulled a tray out.
I started defrosting two cubes a night and monster has been eating the soup. I started using a sqeasy tube thing i got with one of my ulcer meds but never used it to give monster some of the soup. The funny thing is that the moment I put it done, Pixie took it and ran into the middle of the tunnel to gnaw on it.
Monster realy likes the chunky soup. He'll eat the chicken on my fingers freely. ^.^ Pixie acualy will lick up the soup, and Dakota also will lick the soup.

Right now, i am just going to focus on raw because getting anything but my mice is not in the budget. I have to save for two ferret vet bills.

[Heather]

Sounds to me like you've found something they like. Good work. I would eventually start adding more and more meat and gradually removing the baby food but for now keep it as it is. When you've got something that they will eat when they're sick that's most of the battle. Ferrets like cats would sooner starve to death than eat when they're sick, so finding food that is palatable for them is the whole battle.
ciao

[AnimalFarm2006]

is it okay to feed them the mix with mainly giblets and hearts? Is it a good balance?