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Post by Heather on Mar 6, 2009 1:44:31 GMT -5
What size of mouse are you using? I'm not having much luck with Captain Jack either. I let him hunt with Mr Squiggly and Sprite, both accomplished hunters. He freaked, poor little sod thought they were tearing apart the stuffies. He just wanted out of the tub and to be held. I guess I'm going to try some pinkies and see if I can entice him to try that. Getting them to eat their kill, much less kill it is often a hit and miss thing and quite often requires persistence more than actual knowledge. Captain Jack is the first ferret that I've had that actually doesn't appear to have any instinct at all about hunting. He's also one of the few ferrets that I have here that have stuffies that he sleeps with and carries around the house. You might consider letting him hide his prize and see if he goes back to it. A couple of my guys quite often stash their prize but go back to it in a couple of hours. Have you tried taking a larger piece of meat and play tug with it. Tease them and usually they will jump at the meat and often bite it, while playing with it. Sometimes, they will get pieces break off and then get some in their mouth. To begin with they will often spit and gag but they will eventually recognise it as food. That's on of the biggest problems is getting them to recognise meat as food. I've never tried olive oil as I don't feed plant oils to the furbabies, but I've heard that others have had reasonable success with it. Everything is very much trial and error and it's a possibility that this might work. If you have some olive oil then definitely try it, they may like the taste. I will check in tomorrow and see how you're doing. ciao
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Post by moonlightsedge on Mar 6, 2009 16:55:23 GMT -5
I started with the youngest mice that would survive if the ferrets didn't kill them( I didn't want to waste them) and I thought to go any larger might turn them off of any hunting, I would lose interest fast if my food bit back... I tried pinkies and fuzzies but they didn't move around enough to attract attention. In Fact I drizzled tone on a pinky and Diesel licked all the tone off and accidentally killed it by stepping on it when he wandered away. I suppose if I could pick up all their tubes I could let him take it into the room and stash it but I wanted to use the tub to keep the mess down...would the smell of the blood other my other mice and rats? My Mice had babies one 2 days ago and one today and one of my ASF had her babies 2 days ago they are all in the ferret room. I don't think the tug of war will work, they don't seem to be to interested in playing that either way. I will try though and see what happens. Anyways, on my way out now.
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Post by Heather on Mar 7, 2009 0:58:31 GMT -5
Hmmm. I would think that you could indeed cause undo stress to momma and her babies but that part I'm not really experienced with . My mouse colony lives in the basement totally away from the ferrets. The only creature that has access is nasty, black kitty, Merlyn. He enjoys the hunt but for the most part appears to leave the colonies alone. I know that even moving momma right after her babies were born can cause her to kill them. I have to agree about the aggressiveness of the "dinner". I know that my guys have suffered a couple of nasty bites when they decided to let the game go on for too long. Most times they do a quick kill but every now and then they play a little and they usually get a bite or two. It's usually enough to convince them not to play with their food . I had one lady tie a string to an already dead mouse and drag it around and let her guys play with and chase it. I don't know if that will help at all. Have you tried cutting it open and letting them realize that it's food inside? One of the mentors threw his in the blender He then added little bits to his guys food mix, just like he did when he was starting them raw feeding, gradually getting them used to the smell and the flavour. He did warn that the smell was horrific and that he gave a strong suggestion that the blender only be used for mice after that I'm sure we can pull some more suggestions out of a hat if none of those work. Good luck, I will check in with you tomorrow night ciao
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Post by moonlightsedge on Mar 8, 2009 14:15:13 GMT -5
Man I wish I knew the recommendations on a seperate blender efore, I just threw out my old one, but will not use my new one....it's my baby...maybe I will post on our local freecycle group for a used blender. I can try a couple pinkies in their soup again(they didn't care for that last batch) I wonder if I should just say to heck with it and cut one up and throw it into their dish of kibble? I haven't tried that yet in their cage, not much space to stash it, and they go to their dish when they are hungry....it might solve a few problems...just pretending it is soft kibble...rolling it in ground kibble didn't work... anyways, I'll try to get back on in the morning.
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Post by Heather on Mar 8, 2009 20:07:43 GMT -5
Freecycle might indeed be a good idea. You never know. Have you tried to cut up some pinkies and put it in their soupy? You'd have to cut them up small so that they might just mistake it for soupy lumps It might give them the idea of a slightly different taste and smell. Let me know how and what you decided to do. I will check with you tomorrow, good luck. ciao
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Post by moonlightsedge on Mar 11, 2009 14:43:47 GMT -5
I don't think leaving chunks in their soup would work, they are still picky about that, if there is chunks in it or it is to thick they leave it. No luck on a blender yet. Tonight I will try just throwing in a few chunks of meat into their regular bowl with their kibble, I'll count them so I know if they eat them or not(unless they hide them in the litter...lol though I change it enough I should be able to tell when I scoop it later tonight) My husband laughed at me he said maybe our guys just aren't cut out for it, seemingly having absolutely no instincts leaning that way at all.... I told him to ad they WILL eat meat....hhmmmm just looks like it will take a while yet...whats the longest it has taken you to switch anyone over? I have to admit it is frustrating running into this brick wall time and again...
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Post by moonlightsedge on Mar 14, 2009 10:46:09 GMT -5
Well, they wouldn't take any turkey, going to try something else. Maybe a bit of beef, they liked the beef in their soup, and didn't care for the turkey except the gibblet bits...
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Post by Heather on Mar 14, 2009 14:42:51 GMT -5
The longest....mmm 2 months, little Calypso being followed by a close second Lady Babushka (but she was 9 when I got her) who took about a month and change.... but....I've been doing this a long time I'm trying to think how long it took me to get the guys to switch when I first started....quite awhile if I remember, there's a lot of trial and error. I've found a formula that I like using and have been successful with everyone of my switches. I basically let the soupy do the switching for me. Ferrets also do like kittens, if they see something done they have to check it out and try it. With hard core raw feeders on site (they won't touch kibbles) the newbies see them eating and enjoying meats...it makes my job a lot easier. The thing is your guys are eating raw, their soupy right. Once they get comfortable eating the soupy raw mix then you just keep adding more and more meat until it becomes the consistency of raw hamburg. It takes a little time but works very well. It's prey that's causing the problems. Calypso is still not eating prey but Captain Jack has decided that these things actually taste good and is now eating mice (of course Jack-Jack thinks with his tummy, food is his number 1 priority he didn't get to be rolypoly from pushing away the food bowl : I have always let them make the choice to prey feed on their own but then if they don't eat the prey that night, then I always have someone else who will. It's never spoiled so I don't feel the pressure as much as someone who is supplying prey that doesn't get eaten . Usually my guys are eating totally raw before they make the switch to prey. It just acts like a progression. Captain Jack just made the switch this week. He came in just before Christmas....so that's 4 months until he was eating prey. Calypso, she was my most difficult switch yet as she suffered shelter shock and stopped eating all together. So in truth my biggest battle with her was just getting her to eat anything. This month she's stopped eating plastic and is truly eating a totally raw diet but she's not showing any signs of switching to prey yet. I figure it's only a matter of time until she tries whatever her best friend Jack is eating so she will be moving on to prey eventually. The two seniors that I got were weird little ducks.....Babushka was the hard switch taking a couple weeks before she would even eat out of the bowl, Pooka her cage mate switched in days and then took a huge backslide and had to be spoon fed again within 2 weeks. I got them both eating raw comfortably and then a few days later I watched the rat being dragged into the bedroom (couldn't see by who because the rat was bigger than the ferret) Turns out it was Babushka. This tiny little wisp of a thing (she doesn't way much more than a pound) dragging this adult rat down the hall, hissing and squeeking. She had turned to prey I sometimes wonder if some of our pressure to get them to eat actually causes them to be overly cautious. Perhaps, concentrating your guys on the raw switch and then converting them to prey once they're on raw (no kibbles to deter them) might be easier. Just a thought. I will check in later tonight to see where you are and what's going on. Have a great weekend. ciao
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Post by moonlightsedge on Mar 16, 2009 18:41:00 GMT -5
Well it's been an exciting few days, Oliver the little trouble maker, knocked over a mouse bin, so one ASFR died in the fall, one albino mouse is...umm well loose in the house somewhere and I saved 2 ASFRs. So today I went to check on the ASFR tank to find out I got mites...so I am a little worried because the ferrets love to roll in the sawdust and the tub they knocked over yesterday they rolled in.... Well I can't find any mites in that tub fortunately(though no guarantee I know) so it still worries me and the rodents and ferrets share a room. So I will focus on the soupies and work up from there...take it slow and let my breeders work up to it to I guess. It will be a while before I would feed prey now just to make sure, I don't need to cause more problems. Talk to you later.
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Post by Heather on Mar 16, 2009 23:58:31 GMT -5
Ah, ferrets in the mouse bin....it can present problems. I found one of my mice stuffed in a plant pot. He was very dead but obviously one of the guys raided the bin when I was doing a canned hunt today. My fault for leaving the bin lid off and the bin on the floor but I was sure that no one had jumped in. You could always freeze the little sods before you feed them to your ferrets but then you have to figure out how you're going to do the kill I certainly wouldn't let the guys handle the rats until you're sure that they don't have mites Working just with the soupy isn't a bad thing though. Give your colony to grow up and multiply and give your guys time to work on getting a taste for raw meats. I will check in with you tomorrow to see if you ever captured your wayward escapee I would think if I were in a house full of ferrets that I would be trying to get back into the safety of that bin Good luck ciao
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Post by moonlightsedge on Mar 17, 2009 2:17:28 GMT -5
Well tomorrows biggest stop will be for some live traps at UFA. I cleaned most my bins today, no mites in any except my ASFR tank. The new bedding seems clean and the only thing different was the small partial bag of shavings from when we had that hamster here was used in their tank and no where else. Well I will definitely watch my supply a lot closer. So some of my guys got moved around, the mice are in the big bin, I have a new large aquarium coming tomorrow so will do the big cleaning on the last tank then. And they are no where close to the others anymore until we nip this in the bud. I think the ferrets are ok, but I am going to do a full clean tomorrow on their cages, if I manage any sleep tonight with my son still having a wicked fever that he woke up with this morning. Soupy tomorrow, we skipped today, to much craziness going on. g'night.
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Post by Heather on Mar 17, 2009 2:23:42 GMT -5
Take care of your skin kid, I hope he's feeling better in the morning. Don't let yourself get worn down. Good luck trapping the runaway. I will check in on you tomorrow ciao
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Post by moonlightsedge on Mar 21, 2009 22:10:02 GMT -5
We caught the run away, so almost all's good with that except the mites... My boys both ended up with the flu...been fevered fun all week. Except that now one or two of the ferts are looking like they might have came down with it, so I gotta go do some research. I am tired it has been a long week. I'll probably be a couple more days before I can do much more than a quick update.
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Post by Heather on Mar 22, 2009 16:30:48 GMT -5
I'm glad that you caught up with the escapee I'm sorry that your household has had flu bug problems...yes the ferts can come down with it too I hope they haven't but keep them hydrated and take care of yourself. I will keep an eye open for your next post. ciao
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Post by moonlightsedge on Mar 25, 2009 16:32:17 GMT -5
Yahoo!!!! 4 out of 5 made a kill today. My youngest girl wouldn't do anything with the mouse but the rest did and most of them even ate some of theirs...I put them with their catches back in their cages and it seemed they were comfortable enough to dig in. It's a good thing to cause I got a whole bunch of little mousies that need to be culled my 2 Mamas are going to pop with babies today or tomorrow. So far I am pulling the albinos first they seem to be more spazy and jumpy and that sets the others off which makes it hard to clean their tub and all that. Fingers crossed that this isn't just a fluke. The kids are better but a couple of the ferts seem to be a touch sick.
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