Help Putting on Weight?

[Zoshi]

Okay, now that we officially graduated, it seems the kids are slacking off on their foods. xD Of course, perfect timing. Coco eats anything, and Mis and Tikki are snubbing beef (although veal is perfectly yummy). Everything else is varying degrees of "yummy", thankfully.

Now, the problem is with Tikki. She's a petite girl, at the beginning of the year she weighed in around 1.56 lbs - 1 lbs 9 ozs. Of course, summer brought her weight down, and she was around 1.4lbs for most of summer. She's just dropped down to 1.3lbs. Her coat has begun to change, but her weight is not going up.

Now then, you can feel her ribs when you pet her. She doesn't visibly look skinny, in that she doesn't have hollows in her sides, but she's skinny. It's almost as if she has no layer of... fat, I guess? between her skin and ribs.

She's going on 4 years now, and truthfully she's hovered around 1.5 lbs since I've had her (like she has a super-metabolism or something). But, I've noticed that the younger kids have been stealing meat from her during feeding times, since apparently it tastes better stolen than it does from the bowl. Yes, they do it even though a bowl full of the same meat is sitting right there in front of them.

Here's my plan:
I just got a sampler pack of freeze-dried from CHP, and I'm planning on making soupies out of them to give her as an extra, during playtime. I'm hoping that a) it'll help get her weight to a better level, preferably one where I can't feel her ribs, and b) it'll get her used to more flavors of freeze-dried, since she's pretty much addicted to S&C's Chicken right now. I'm going to get some chicken baby food as well, since she likes that and hopefully it'll get her interested in the soupies.

Other than her weight, she doesn't seem to have any other problems. She poops fine, she plays great (better than before she switched), she keeps escaping over the barrier.

What do you guys think? Good plan? I don't want to overfeed her, but she really seems like she could use the extra help.

[Heather]

Sounds like a little extra attention might indeed be a positive thing for her. You might want to allow her some feeding time by herself, especially if she won't stand up for herself at the dinner bowl. You can also give her the fattier cuts as this too will allow her to put on some extra weight.
ciao

[Zoshi]

I'll be sure to set aside the fattier pieces for her. I know she likes them well enough. ;3

The problem with the kids stealing from her is all due to her weight. She pushes them around all the time outside of the cage, and inside of it too, and she's a demon at the food bowl, but when they get into tugs-of-war, she just doesn't have the weight to pull back. And there are ALWAYS tugs-of-war. I think I'm going to utilize the handy-dandy separation features of the FN 142, and put the kids in one section and Tikki in the other for a while after giving them their food.

[Heather]

Sounds like a plan
ciao

[Zoshi]

So, I thought that the stealing-from-Tikki thing was definitely a dominance/give me food I"m hungry sort of thing.
Today, however, made me think something else might be in play. xD

Tikki is in the upper half, Mis and Coco in the bottom half. I gave them their separate portions of chicken wings today, along with giving Tikki some soupies. I had to go run some errands so off I go. I come back around 4 hours later to find that Tikki had licked up as much of the rest of the soupie as she could without eating chunks, and eaten a chicken wing tip as well.

The kids? They hadn't touched their food at all. And they were looking at me with pitiful puppy eyes to boot. I open the door, hold the bowl of chicken up to their noses. They lick it, then look at it forlornly before shuffling off to lay down on a bed.
Not hungry? Pining after Tikki? All possible... except that as soon as I got a piece out and gave it to them they took to it like they've been starved the past week.
It's as if, as weird as this sounds, they have forgotten what purpose a bowl serves. xD Tikki is notorious for stashing, so she gets most food into the feeding dens before the kids even move a muscle, and I think that they are probably too lazy to pull the food out themselves. It's just so weird.

Good thing is, Tikki is eating the soupie I made, which is a Turkey baby food, AFS & Stella and Chewy's freezedried. The baby food is amazing, I can't get her to eat most soupies unless it's included. xD

[mustelidmusk]

If Tikki likes chicken baby food, use the chicken instead of turkey, which is lower fat than chicken.
Setlla and Chewy's has a new "flavor" in both freeze-dried and frozen called "Duck, Duck, Goose". Both Duck and goose are high fat, dark poultry meats. Of course, a little heavy cream (preferably organic) added to the soup may also help.

I hate Spring and Fall - these are the times of year that ferts do their hormonal changes - so we're always wondering about weight, coat change, activity levels, etc. It's been my experience that ferrets stress out and lose a little weight prior and during shedding. Also keep in the back of your mind that weight loss can be attributed to adrenal issues. When ferts have very early adrenal, they commonly are more energetic than usual, and many tend to exhibit "overly attentive behavior" toward their siblings.Adrenal is not always the reason for more energy and a little weight loss, but you'll want to watch for that possibility in the future (as you'ld be doing for any 4-yr-old fert!)

-jennifer

[Zoshi]

Thanks for the tip about the turkey/chicken baby food! I'll pick up chicken tomorrow for her. :3
There's a good chance I'll be going to the GCFA Ferret show here by Chicago on Saturday (got my fingers crossed) so hopefully, if CHP has some Duck Duck Goose there I'll be able to pick some up for her. She loves poultry, so I hope she'll take to it.

Oh, the adrenal. It's one thing I dread and worry about with her. So far I haven't seen any real changes in behavior, she's still has hyper-active and OCD as she's always been. xD She's calmed down a little, since she used to be severely high-strung, but so far nothing that's making me concerned. She got rat tail the first shedding season, and she gets it every year, not so that it's entirely bald but just sparse, so her tail looks skinny. The first vet who saw her during her fall shed said that meant she was at a higher risk for adrenal. D: I don't know how true that is, I've read conflicting accounts, but I keep watch over her sheds, just in case.
I hope the weight loss is just seasonal stress; sometimes I wonder if the only reason she seems skinny to me is because she has two behemoths (well, not really) as playmates, and the difference is so big. xD

[spiritualtramp]

In my experience the rat tail does seem like some sort of mild precursor to adrenal, but that doesn't really mean much. With Pilot, I always feed her first, separately from the boys, and give her the fattier cuts of meat. I also feed her a soup several times a week, between meals. This has helped her put on 25% more weight than when she was first diagnosed adrenal, and she's definitely doing much better. Sometimes a little extra attention does go a long way!

BTW, my kids love the duck duck goose Stella and Chewy's! Definitely try it if you can!

[Zoshi]

I'm adopting a wait-and-watch with the rat tail, it's more of a thinning of the fur on her tail, so it's not looking bad. xD

I was separating them at morning feedings, but no one took it well. The kids moped and Tikki hid all the food and didn't it a thing until I let everyone back together. Ugh, so what I started doing was that I now give each ferret their own piece of meat directly. It keeps the two kids occupied while Tikki stashes hers and starts to eat. She's also getting soupies every day. So far she's gained 1 ounce since last Thursday! I'm happy. :3 I'm hoping the kids realize that they can eat meat without having to steal it from her. xD

[luci]

Maybe you could play a little tug of war with the kids when you feed them and get it out of their systems. I know when Fierra seems a little uninterested in her meal that a bit of tug of war will get her pretty excited about eating. The young ones want to "kill" their food before they eat it I think.

[Zoshi]

Oooh, that's a good idea Luci! I'll try that when I feed them tomorrow morning.