Tip: Calcium Supplements

[mustelidmusk]

Sometimes ferrets are reluctant to eating larger pieces of bone, and you my feel a need to provide an additional ca1cium source for your ferrets. Here are some additional ways to add calcium to the diet.

1. Save your egg shells! Rinsethem oncold water drain and dry them on paper towels. Once dry, you can crush then if you wish. store them in the freezer in a plastic tub. Mix into ground meats, soups, etc to serve.

2. Bonus Velvet antler - outstanding source of calcium and trace minerals. Cannot splinter (velevt antlers are softer than bone and they're pourous. Buty The SMALL DOG TREATS, which are thinly sliced. My brats eat them right out of the bag lke potato chips! The antlers are pourous, so the absorb flavors (salmon oil, ferretone, etc.) easily (chips & dip ). You can also easily clip them into small slivers with a pair of wire cutters. The slivers can be sprinled into dry or wet foods.
Antlers are great for cleaning teeth as well.

www.bonusvelvetantler.com/
I highly recommend Bonus Velvet antlers - you can find velvet antler supplements that are powdered, but the powdered supplements are much more expensive that the round. And Bonus is the only company that I know of that has the thinly slice rounds. Moreover, their herd is from Southern Colorado, where the elk grow very strong and healthy.

3. ABout bone meal. DO NOT use PET GRADE Bone Meal. Use human grade bone meal only!! Livestock from the US have high levels of lead in their bones due to pollutants from gasoline/car exhausts that have leached into the soils) Human grad bone meals come fron other countries (probably south america/argentina???) It's easy to find info on the web about this if you want to research this a bit.

-jennifer

[Forum Administrator]

I sometimes add a little eggshell to my cats raw foods (she doesnt always eat the bone). Bone really only needs to make up 10% of the diet (so not too much). If your ferret is having issues eating bone, its always best to try and get them to eat the bone before trying supplements. Try hitting the bone with a mallot to expose the yummy marrow inside, or try waiting on providing your ferret with more meat until they finish the bone.

I am glad that Mustelidmusk did not suggest calcium powder. Ferrets get more then just calcium from bone, and the three things she listed (bonemeal, antlers, eggshell powder) all provide more then just calcium. All of the things she suggested adding are really just diet tweaks (and not actual "pills and supplements" this is very good.

FYI- When the holistic ferret website opens this august we will not be advocating the use of supplements such as vitamen A supplements, calcium supplements (meaning calcium powder/pills). We will be encouraging owners to make dietary changes (such as offering antlers for extra calcium) instead of jumping into oversupplementation.

Good job, Mustelidmusk!

[mustelidmusk]

Thanks Giuli,

Actually, this s a GREAT correction on Giuli's part! The term"supplement" kind of implies the need for a bunch of synthetic additives. I try to adhere to natural sources for nutrients that might be missing. My brat are not good bone-crunchers.

Here's what I've learned about feeding ground diet....
Over time, I've learned that my ferrets will crunch bone better if they are offered the bone aside from the meat - wet/moist food is NOT supposed to go crunch - according to my ferrets! I think this has to do with the non-natural ground diet I feed them. In a ground diet, there's NO WARNING that something hard is about to hit your teeth -----ever get an olive in your martini that had a bit of the pit left in it? OWIE!!!!

It's not that they can't handle bone...they just eat the moist food more gingerly, and they want the bone when they're expecting it...Duh!! The anlers are softer than bone, and this helped my brats start to improve their bone-eating skills!!!

I do occasionally use nn-allopathithic/homeopathic(not necesarily natural) treaments on my ferrets, but this is a temporary therapy. WHen it comes to diet/long-term nutriition, I look for a natural food-source solution. (ferrets may not find antlers in the wild, but velvet antlers are eaten by many wild carnivores.)

In short, a naturally packaged food source will more likely provide a balanced food souce that's more "bio-available" than an artificially extracted supplement.

-jennifer

[jojodancer]

Jennifer sold me, and I just bought a bag of velvets for small dogs, for $15.

Should I be concerned about giving these as treats? They already have EVO, ZiwiPeak, and Natural Gold available 24 hours a day, and get raw soup (with bones, feathers, and organs) twice a day. I'm worried that I might be overmedicating the guys, since they are marketing the velvets as OTC meds for arthritis.

[mustelidmusk]

If you feel your ferret is getting everything he needs from his current diet, then I'd use the antler as an occasional treat or added nutrient. Something that's given occasionally isn't going to blow your ferret's diet to pieces.

As far as the "medicinal value" goes, velvet antler is just a highly nutritious version of young bone. A lot of people who use supplements these days feel that our food lack nutrients (especially micro-nutrients) due to our mineral-depleted soils. Velvet antlers are a type of young bone that's well-nourished with blood to upport rapid growth. Carnivores have been eating antlers forever, and elk ranch dogs eat lots of them.

Velvet antler has been used in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM is over 2000 years). TCM focuses more on achieving wellness rather then fixing illness, which is he western medical approcach.
So, a lot of the "medical focus" is marketing for people who who want help with a medical problem where western medicine falls short.

As a treat for a well-babnced diet, I'd give 1 small dog treat per ferret every other week. Since my brats reject some bone, they get 2 treats per ferret each week, and egg shell.

If your ferrts diet is really balance d and complete, you can offer anter less frequently.
Remember that variety is good, and antler is variety. Offered as a treat, antler will more likely do more good than harm.

Bonus velevet comes from Penrose, CO, where the elk herds are healthy and strong. I feel their product is safe and natural as a healthy ferret treat.
-jennifer

[stinkweasels]

interesting, which ones do you use?

[mustelidmusk]

sitecreatepro.com/sites/B/o/Bonusweb/


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They are not the fastest at getting their orders out since they're a small operation. But I think the product is great. There are other sources for velevt antlers, but Bonus has the small chips, a good price, and thesouthern colorado location has very healthy herds.

-jennifer