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Post by dearambellina on Jan 18, 2009 11:27:04 GMT -5
Last night I had put in a bowl of kibble and Dorian ate like he hadn't eaten in a long time . I also put in a bowl of just soup. When I woke up this morning the soup bowl was licked clean. I need a nanny cam for overnight and when I'm gone so I know who's eating what! Since I'm going to be home pretty much all day today, I'm going to try to handfeed soup for today to get Dorian and Jane on that. I know I can do it, it's just frustrating!
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Post by spiritualtramp on Jan 19, 2009 9:03:40 GMT -5
Great news! At least someone loves momma's cooking Keep up with it for the day today and let me know your results! Hopefully everyone will be eating soups by the end of the day!
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Post by dearambellina on Jan 19, 2009 13:38:46 GMT -5
I finally posted pictures of my ferrets!
Today I made a soup of just chicken and water. Charlotte ate about half the bowl when I put it in the cage. I put some in Dorian's and Jane's mouths and while they ate what I gave them, they didn't go into the bowl for more. Maybe they're just not hungry. For now, I need to stop by the grocery store on my way home and pick up some more chicken. Would breast meat or leg meat be better?
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Post by spiritualtramp on Jan 19, 2009 14:57:44 GMT -5
For a start I'd go with breast meat, it's bigger and easier to cut up - but generally speaking leg meat contains more nutrients.
It sounds like Jane and Dorian are getting there! Keep up the good work and hopefully soon they will be eating from the bowl on their own.
Now I'm going to go check out pictures of those sweet bumps!
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Post by spiritualtramp on Jan 20, 2009 19:12:49 GMT -5
I just wanted to update you - Giuli has chosen me to be your official mentor. As I'm still in training, she'll be overseeing us but I feel confident that we can get your kids switched over fairly easily. A little about myself: My name is Erinn, I'm 23 and going to school for pre-vet while working at a bank (busy busy busy.) Other than ferrets, I love art, photography, writing, and having a good time with friends, movies, and music. I'm currently obsessed with Harvest Moon on Wii, and that's owning much of my free time... I'm a vegetarian and have been my whole life, so I naturally have to explain raw feeding my ferrets to other people... oh man that takes a lot of patience sometimes! I have four ferrets, soon to be five, with two at the bridge (Scout and Sailor.) Diesel is a DMK rescue, about 2 or 3 years old, champagne and full of himself. He's very bonded to me and even sleeps with me. He was the first of my kids to go all-raw; he took to it immediately. I adopted him last January (the 26th - coming up a year!) and surprised me by begging for a chicken wing one night. I let him have it, and he quickly stopped caring about kibble at all. So he's been on raw for just about a year. Pilot is my only female, a teeny little Marshall DEW. She's deaf and totally hilarious because of it. When I give her scritches on the shoulder, she poofs her tail. I estimate her to be about 5. She loves to dook and dance and she, too, sleeps with me at night. Ranger is a sable Marshall's, about 4 years old. I adopted both Ranger and Pilot from a friend on another forum, and though I thought Ranger would be the hardest to switch to raw, he started gnawing on bones out of the blue one day. It was quite a shocker because he's generally very particular in his tastes, and still only likes one specific treat, but he devours his raw meals with ease and vigor! Tank is the baby at about a year and a half. I fell for his sweet DEW face about 6 months before I actually got him... he was at a pet store I frequented near where I work. Well, he disappeared from the store, obviously he had been bought, and so I resigned myself to swooning over other babies. Months later, I come into work and my coworkers inform me that the day before (my day off) a customer had come in and mentioned trying to rehome a ferret. My coworkers all naturally volunteered me as I'm that crazy ferret girl around town So later that day, the customer came in with poor fat Tank in a cardboard box. He popped his head out and I immediately said, "oh you got him from Zoo Creatures!" and she said, "how did you know???" and I said, "Oh, I never forget a face!" He was huge, though, very very obese, and covered in fleas. He had no muscle structure at all and was very nervous of people and other ferrets. The poor thing. Now he's a healthy weight, has great muscle tone, and loves to give big happy hugs! In March I'll be heading down to PA for the AFA Spring Nats, where I'll also be picking up my fifth baby. He is a chocolate hob from the Cami/Oscar litter from Novel Beginnings Ferretry. I've named him NB's Captain Morgan for two reasons: Captain will fit in my general theme of names, and Captain Morgan fits with his very handsome brother, NB's Tipsy Absinthe, owned by a friend of mine. I'm so excited to bring him home, he is such a kisser and a lover! Anyway that's a bit about myself and my furkids, I'm really excited to be your mentor and to help your babies on their path to great nutrition! I hope all went well today with the soups, let me know!
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Post by dearambellina on Jan 20, 2009 22:23:28 GMT -5
Yay pre-vet! Haha, I can't remember if I said this already, but I'm going back to school in March to get my bachelor's degree in veterinary technology (already have the associate's) and them I'm going to vet school. I need to get Harvest Moon for the Wii. I had it way back when on Nintendo64 and LOVED it. I've since had it on Game Boy advanced and the DS, but NOTHING beat the N64 version. Good news! Charlotte and Jane are officially eating raw (chunks of chicken! not even soups!)!!!! Just my male is being my stubborn butthead Typical male, huh? I remember when Ambellina was sick and I was giving her baby food, he didn't even want anything to do with that! I'll work with him some more tonight and tomorrow. I have off tomorrow so I'll have plenty of time. He didn't even want anything to do with the chicken rolled in crushed kibble the brat!
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Post by dearambellina on Jan 21, 2009 0:32:46 GMT -5
Oh! And I weighed the kits today, Jane is 580-600 grams (she would NOT stay still on the scale ) Charlotte is 725 grams Dorian is 960 grams.
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Post by spiritualtramp on Jan 21, 2009 10:32:05 GMT -5
Hey, awesome, it looks like we have a lot more in common than just ferrets! If you liked the N64 version of HM, definitely check out the Wii version. It's great, I really do think it's the best so far. There are of course the characteristic glitches and bad translations, but overall it's a well-done game. And I've played every single Harvest Moon there is...!
Yay Charlotte and Jane! I'm so happy that they've taken to this easily. Dorian sounds like he's going to take a bit of gentleness, so I'd keep him eating soups. You can try cutting up teensy tiny wee bits of chicken (like tips of fingernail size.) and adding that to his soups, but what I found to work was ground turkey and ground chicken. The consistency is easier for finicky eaters to acclimate to, especially in a soupy mixture. So you can try that out with him.
With the girl, keep them on chunks, and each day make the chunks a bit bigger than the last day. It will still take some time to work them up to eating off the bone, as their jaws just aren't muscular enough for that yet! But they're definitely on the right path!
They're all at good starting weights so far, and keeping track during the switch will help gauge who is eating and who is not, so that's great info to record.
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Post by dearambellina on Jan 21, 2009 10:40:59 GMT -5
Since Dorian is being so stubborn, do you think (tiny) chunks of chicken mixed with kibble would entice him, since it's in the bowl and not "invading" his kibble? He won't touch the kibble if I've soaked it in water or poured soup on it. He just sniffs the bowl and walks on by. It's adorable watching Jane and Charlotte eat. They both chew on the chicken and their tongues go everywhere! It almost looks like a dog trying to get peanut butter off the roof of it's mouth. And they've taken to caching chunks in the litter box they don't use I'm thinking I may just take out the litter, clean the box, and put blankets in it or something. All three of them go in that box, but they don't use it, and yesterday I found chunks hidden in the litter. So I don't want them accidently ingesting litter. Oh! And I was looking at Hare Today, Gone Tomorrow. Have you ordered from them before? I was just curious about your experiences. Living in Las Vegas we have no farms so I'm pretty much stuck with what I can find at the grocery store. I would love to introduce rabbit to my pets, and I saw pig ears (not dehydrated ones, too!) I really want to order from there, I just want some feedback first
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Post by spiritualtramp on Jan 21, 2009 16:16:10 GMT -5
I actually have ordered from them! I don't order often as it's pricey, but they're a great supplier and have a lot of interesting, hard to find cuts and meats. Shipping is a kick in the shins, though, so I suggest buying large quantities, and if you have any raw feeder friends, order together to split up costs. Rabbit ears, fur and all are awesome and make a great source of "fiber." Fur acts like fiber to help clean out the intestinal tracts, and the fuzzers seem to love them. Pigs ears would make fun treats, too, though I haven't tried them. That's worth a try with Dorian, but in my experience, he'll probably just eat around the tiny chunks, and they'll end up drying out and becoming inedible. Blended all together (either in a soup, or kibble mushed into ground raw,) generally gets the flavors meshed together well enough. The first step I would suggest is to get him used to eating soft kibble, soups, and other softer/liquid textures. Ferrets can surprisingly have texture aversions, so it's important to figure out if that is the issue here or not. (My guess is it is.) For the cacheing, I actually use smallish cardboard boxes inside their cage and scattered around the apartment. They can eat in these and can stash extras in them, and each of my kids seems to have a favorite spot, and generally leave the others' alone. So it might be worthwhile attempting to train them to use feeding dens if you're having a problem with stashing. Check out the Feeding Den thread holisticferret.proboards80.com/index.cgi?board=enrich&action=display&thread=230 if you haven't already for ideas, if that's something you're interested in doing. Good luck and let me know how they're doing!
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Post by dearambellina on Jan 21, 2009 19:39:00 GMT -5
Okay, I'm pretty sure I threw too many different foods/flavors/textures at Dorian at one time. So I'm going to start from square one. I put some kibble in the cage and he's chowing down. The girls will not touch it though, they only want their raw. I'm going to slowly add water everyday in increasing amounts to get him used to a soupy texture. then start adding chicken. And try that angle.
I started switching the cats today too! I'm so excited to be able to have a fully raw furkids!
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Post by spiritualtramp on Jan 21, 2009 19:41:09 GMT -5
Step by step, that's the best way with the confused, stubborn or finicky ones. Keep it slow and don't get ahead of yourself (or ahead of him!)
How are the cats taking to it???
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Post by dearambellina on Jan 21, 2009 20:02:57 GMT -5
All 4 are doing really well. One of my girls, Izzy, prefers it in soup form. But she gobbles it all up when I hide chunks in canned food. I'm doing the canned to raw method and gradually increasing the chunks of raw meat in the canned.
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Post by spiritualtramp on Jan 21, 2009 20:31:51 GMT -5
That sounds solid! I'm glad they're taking to it well so far!
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Post by dearambellina on Jan 22, 2009 10:29:00 GMT -5
They always surprise ya. My younger male, who I thought would be that hardes to switch picked all the chicken out of the can and ate it. I picked up their dry food last night so I had to deal with some yelling cats who didn't understand why there was no dry still out after mealtime. They're catching on quick about this mealtime thing. For Dorian, should I gradually increase the amount of water every 2 days or so, or how do you think I should go about it?
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