ferretfreke
Cageless and Roamin' Free
Raw and Whole Prey Feeder[/b]
Posts: 235
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Post by ferretfreke on Apr 17, 2009 22:58:56 GMT -5
For the last two and a half weeks I have been feeding my business a mostly raw diet. My end goal is a whole prey diet. They love Evo canned duck so i decided to use that as my mixer. What I started with was just mixing in some ground turkey for a few days. They ate that well. Then I added in some chopped up chicken wings, bones chopped pretty small. When they ate that well for a few days, I started increasing the size of the bone chunks. They would just leave the larger bone chunks then and eat the rest. I have already tried offering them mice in several ways. I've fasted them and only offered an adult mice or some pinkies. I've cut the mice open. I've put fish oil on them. I've tried playing with them with the ferrets. I've ground them up and syringe fed them. They all think I'm trying to poison them each time! So then with the mix I've been feeding them I tried mixing small amounts of blended pinkies or mice to try and slowly acclimate them to the taste and smell. They ate it at first when it was really small amounts, but would let it sit there for much longer before they would decide to eat it (I completely took their kibble away from them). Then they stopped eating it altogether. If that went well I was going to mix chopped up pinkies, but we've gone backwards now. They don't want to eat the mix now even w/o mice in it. They are so frustrating! I thought my group would be fairly easy because they've always been pretty willing to eat raw or cooked meats that I offer them. I'm going to make a whole prey order soon and try some chicks and quail. They seem to really like poultry and I know they can't eat chicks all the time. I just hope it will help them try the mice. I'm getting worried they never will. Another problem I'm having is BillyBob has vomited several times when I've mixed blended mice in and he did when I syringe fed it to him. The mice and pinkies I've been using are frozen/thawed and I offer them as soon as they are thawed so I don't think they are bad or anything. Also if anyone has any suggestions on how to get them to eat mealworms and such would be appreciated. I read the threads on here about how some ppls ferrets just chomp them up the first time and mine don't get what they're supposed to do with them. Like I said, they are buttholes! Just FYI, the reason I don't have a mentor is because I couldnt commit to the checking in every day thing because I just don't have the time.
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Post by harrisi on Apr 18, 2009 4:58:08 GMT -5
Have you tried soups to try to get them onto raw? You can put pretty much anything in soups and you can also mix in kibble then chunks of bones to make the bone taste like kibble which usually helps get them onto eating bone. You should do well with quail, just make sure to rinse them off in warm water and preferably scrub them down before feeding. As for the vomiting, do you skin the mice before you grind them up/cut them up for feeding? If not, try scrubbing them down in warm water and a tiny drop of washing liquid before feeding. When mice and rats are CO2'd for feeding by the big breeders they are often packed on top of each other and squashed together in a plastic box, obviously this means they will be urinating over each other and it will stick to the skin/fur of the ones underneath, and if you are unlucky enough to get the middle-bottom batch, you will have pee covered mice, whiich might be making BillyBob vomit. If you are not feeding fur/skin, then try something a little less rich. DOCC's will be a good start as they are plain but failrly nutritious (though they cant be fed on a daily basis nor should they be used as a "staple"), it might just be that the food is rich and if you have been feeding canned duck and kibble, it will be a alot for his system. As for meal worms and the like, just try different insects. Meal worms, morio worms (please make sure these are actual morio worms - Z.Morio and not meal worms!), dubia/FDH roaches, crickets etc. If they dont want to eat them, dont worry anyway, they are just a treat. HTH
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ferretfreke
Cageless and Roamin' Free
Raw and Whole Prey Feeder[/b]
Posts: 235
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Post by ferretfreke on Apr 19, 2009 15:51:52 GMT -5
I've been using the canned duck as my soup to mix things in. It works well for them. I haven't been skinning the mice and I didn't know I should be scrubbing them. I'll try that. Thank you. Although Bezoar decided to try the mealworms and he decided he liked them and ate 3. I offered him one the next day and he chowed it down, then a few minutes later started vomiting. Is it all too much for them? I've been taking everything in stages. When I first started mixing in the ground turkey I cooked it and then I barely cooked it until I was just mixing in raw to give their bodies time to adjust.
We seem to be back on track. They are eating the mixture again, but I haven't been putting any mice in it. I think I was offering them too much food also and then worrying when they didnt eat it all. I've been checking their weights every day and most have stayed the same and others have gained. So they must be eating enough and I'm learning they dont need to eat as much on this. They've been really good about starting to chew on bigger meat chunks and even sometimes the bones. I've added organ meat, gizzards, hearts, and liver. They seem to like them. Bezoar really likes the liver. Since I was planning on only feeding them raw temporary til I got them on whole prey, I wasn't too worried about imbalances and deficiencies, but if I can't get them switched soon, when do I need to make sure their diet is balanced?
And why is it quail need to be scrubbed before feeding?
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Post by harrisi on Apr 20, 2009 7:00:06 GMT -5
Meal worms are rich and fatty, so they can upset some ferrets stomachs. Try feeding 1-3 every other day for a while. It might have been the meal worms, it might have been coincidence he vomited after eating the meal worms. He could have also got some shed stuck in the back of his throat that made him gag. Dont worry about checking weights daily, try every 5 days. Otherwise if they loose alot in one day from not eating or something, you will worry. Generally, if you are feeding 3+ types of raw muscle meat (heart, gizzard, legs, wings, breast meat etc), bones or calcium supplements and proper organs (such as liver and kindey) they will be fine until you get them onto whole prey. Really, if they are off of kibble and not eating whole prey, they need a balanced raw diet. Mass-Produced quail need scrubbing for the same reason as mice and rats, they are piled ontop of each other and killed causing them to mess on each other and they are also very dusty and stink otherwise.
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ferretfreke
Cageless and Roamin' Free
Raw and Whole Prey Feeder[/b]
Posts: 235
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Post by ferretfreke on Apr 22, 2009 22:21:34 GMT -5
My babies are eating bones now!!! I'm so excited. It seems like it took forever for them to get it, but all of them now have been munching away! I love watching them eat their raw diet. They've even been fighting over pieces, which I like to see cus that means they're really liking the food. I've only been needing to pour a little bit of duck over their meat and bone chunks now. I'm betting they'll eat it w/o now. Yay! So as far as that goes, they're are no longer buttholes Now begins the journey of getting them to eat whole prey. Oh, how does one get kidneys (chicken or beef) and beef hearts? Do I go to a meat market and ask if they have them? Cus I know they don't at any of my local grocerers.
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Post by Heather on Apr 22, 2009 23:37:30 GMT -5
I'm so glad that your little ones are no longer butt holes If you have an ethnic market you might be able to get offal there. I can get kidneys, liver and chicken hearts and gibblets at our local market. The rest I either have to go to the city (large ethnic markets) or I order them through our raw feeding coop. That does mean that I have to order them in bulk. I ordered beef hearts the last time and got about 100lbs. ciao
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ferretfreke
Cageless and Roamin' Free
Raw and Whole Prey Feeder[/b]
Posts: 235
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Post by ferretfreke on Apr 28, 2009 0:09:50 GMT -5
Thanks Heather and harrisi for your help!
I'll try visiting my local asian market to see what I can find.
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