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Post by bindiferret89 on Jul 21, 2009 19:21:20 GMT -5
I had to laugh...I was talking to a friend of mine from work today who has ferrets and she said, "Is your mentor by chance Erinn?" She knows you from Ferret Village from awhile ago. Said you were very helpful when she first started with ferrets.  |
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Post by spiritualtramp on Jul 21, 2009 19:38:35 GMT -5
Wow small world! What was her username? Tell her I say hello!!
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Post by bindiferret89 on Jul 21, 2009 21:02:36 GMT -5
I'll have to ask her what it was and let you know!
I mixed up two batches of the same soup recipe (minus the egg) for tomorrow and put them in the freezer. I'll have to get more chicken tomorrow or the day after because I'm out of boneless already!
Also made some fun treat soupies, one with Marshall's Duk Soup & turkey and giblets cat food, the other with canned tuna, egg, and chicken & salmon cat food...obviously these are NOT the best things in the world for them, but they are high quality cat foods I'd been using for treats and I was trying to use up that and the Duk Soup, so they will get VERY small amounts of these very infrequently. The tuna was the lowest sodium canned tuna I could find and the sodium is still pretty high...is it still okay to give them a tiny bit once in awhile?
I was also wondering about the liver in this soup...I know you're only supposed to feed liver 1x per week, but that's one liver per ferret, correct? So it's okay that I'm feeding 1 daily in a soup that's divided between all of them right now.
I'll let you know how mid-morning soups go tomorrow.
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Post by spiritualtramp on Jul 21, 2009 21:22:19 GMT -5
Fish generally is not meant to be a big part of their diet, and I've actually never fed it (fish freaks me out a bit haha) but as a rare treat it should be okay. Make sure they get lots of liquids with it though to flush the sodium. What brand cat foods are you using?
And yep, that's one liver per ferret per week, so if you add one liver to a batch of soup and span it out over several days, it should equal out. No real worries there - sometimes I add a liver to soups too. Just be mindful and you should be alright. And if they like it, that's all the better! Liver was hard for my Ranger and Tank to get to liking, I think it was mostly a texture aversion as they'd eat it pureed but it took AGES to get them to eat it whole.
Good luck and give those cuties kissies for me.
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Post by bindiferret89 on Jul 21, 2009 21:25:32 GMT -5
Nutro and Wellness wet food packets...and I'll make sure to only give them a tiny bit here and there. I just needed to use some of this stuff up and surprisingly know very few people with cats!
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Post by spiritualtramp on Jul 22, 2009 8:11:20 GMT -5
Oh those will be fine, used sparingly. No worse than kibbles really. And like you, I'm all about being as least wasteful as possible.
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Post by bindiferret89 on Jul 22, 2009 9:44:13 GMT -5
Okay, ratios are throwing me off again. I told you I'm horrible with this stuff. I'm trying to figure out, if I want to feed more animals with the bone ground in (easier to get more variety this way), how does that affect my bone-in-meat portions for a week? And what kind of affect will that have on their teeth, not getting as many solid bones?
EDIT: To make it easier on myself, I think I'm just going to use the regular rules of thumb for AM feedings, like I was, and do whole prey in the PM feedings, and if I want to feed animals ground w/ meat/bones/organs, I'll treat them as whole prey meals and only feed them in the evening.
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Post by spiritualtramp on Jul 22, 2009 10:44:34 GMT -5
Yep that's what I'd do - am feedings can be frankenprey and pm whole prey (or ground prey.) Basically the 4::2::1 can be broken into 14 meals, if feeding twice a day only frankenprey, or 7 meals if doing once a day, or adjusted accordingly to what you decide your whole prey schedule will be. Since my kids only get prey as treats a couple times a week, it's not part of their 'meal schedule' and I don't count them as meals. So for ease of understanding, I think the idea of prey/whole ground in the evenings and frankenprey in the mornings is a good plan. You'll probably start to switch it up as you get the hang of it, but for continuity's sake this is a good idea. So you'll just be planning 7 meals a week based on the prey model, which should be pretty straight forward. Teeth-wise, they only need bones to gnaw on once or twice a week and the ground won't be an issue. Raw meats actually contain enzymes that reduce tartar buildup, even if they don't provide the great cleaning properties of gnawing on bones. As your kids are all pretty young, their teeth likely don't have many, if any, issues right now. So you're going to be okay. If you had a kid with heavy tartar buildup I might suggest more gnawing in the beginning to clear that away (like I had to do with Diesel. Whatever the DMKs were fed has left permanent gross stains on all his teeth - he looks like he smoked a pack a day and drank ten cups of coffee a day for his entire life!) How did the am feeding go? I know we were chatting last night about the DMKs so here are some DMK links if you're curious - it really was a phenomenal banding-together of the ferret community and a true showing of the kind of love ferrents share with one another and with their fuzzies. Many people on here have DMK rescues, and I'm sure you'll meet more along the way. www.ohioferretrescue.comwww.youtube.com/watch?v=eADmummyIkY |
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Post by bindiferret89 on Jul 22, 2009 12:48:55 GMT -5
Morning soupies were mostly successful! Nuka and Sully dove in right away and lapped up the whole bowl in minutes! Sully also tipped it, spilled it, and then slid through it, and Nuka decided to go along, so they both got a bath, lol.
How do I know if I'm feeding them enough? They eat it so fast, I can't tell if they're still hungry or not. I think I'm going to just give the two of them moistened kibble this afternoon (Nuka was still eating moistened Marshall's anyway at the pet store) and then evening soup.
Moki and Ginny ate quite a bit, but Lucinda is being a brat and wouldn't eat any. She just sniffed around it, so she's definitely going to need hard kibble this afternoon to fill her tummy.
I also came up with a more balanced (I think), revised menu based on frankenprey in the AM and whole prey/whole ground in the evening, like you said. I plan to be very flexible in the type of boneless meats I use on Wednesdays and Thursdays, using different kinds of meat and different textures (chunks, ground boneless, etc.)
Take a look when you have time and let me know what you think. It's a two-week menu to give them more variety. Now I just need to figure out when I can get my mom to clean the garage freezer so I can do a Hare Today order.
Week 1
Monday
AM: chicken wings
PM: ground rabbit meat/bones/organs
Tuesday
AM: 1/2 Cornish hen
PM: ground duck meat/bones/organs
Wednesday
AM: boneless beef chunks
PM: ground lamb meat/bones/organs
Thursday
AM: boneless pork chunks
PM: mice
Friday
AM: turkey necks
PM: ground goat meat/bones/organs
Saturday
AM: chicken quarters w/ bones
PM: whole quail
Sunday
AM: ground chicken organs, pinkie mice
PM: soup
Week 2
Monday
AM: chicken wings
PM: guinea pig
Tuesday
AM: 1/2 Cornish hen
PM: mice
Wednesday
AM: boneless chicken
PM: ground rabbit meat/bones/organs
Thursday
AM: ground turkey
PM: chicks
Friday
AM: turkey necks
PM: quail
Saturday
AM: chicken quarters w/ bones
PM: chicken hearts and gizzards
Sunday
AM: ground chicken organs, pinkie mice
PM: soup
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Post by spiritualtramp on Jul 22, 2009 14:46:08 GMT -5
If they're scarfing down the soup, offer more. Ferrets eat 'to caloric need' mostly and rarely overindulge. If they're looking for more, odds are they're still hungry. I find that about two ice cubes worth of soup per ferret is about average. One ice cube is approximately a fluid ounce. When I make soup (along with many other people) I freeze it in cubes and that way I can just thaw up several at a time, and it's easy to access in an emergency.
That menu looks great, so far. I think you're definitely getting the hang of it. Just a note on beef though, none of my kids like it and Ranger is very very sensitive to beef - it makes him vomit. It's not common to have sensitivities to beef, but just keep that in mind when offering new meats. Every ferret is different and some never learn to like certain meats. Also, compared to other animals, beef offers the least nutritionally. For these reasons, I only ever buy beef hearts, never meat. My old girl Sailor did love oxtail and veal though - but she was the only one. Try a variety of things and don't be discouraged if someone never gets the feel for a certain meat. Many ferrets feel that way about chicken, too - so it's all up to the individual!
I find the things with the gamiest and strongest flavors are favorites here - lamb and goat go quickly. I know Renee in PA is able to find bison locally and that's a big hit with many ferrets (it's Morgan's brother Tipsy's favorite!) I can ask her where she gets that if you are interested at some point, too. Bison is like beef but has more nutritional value and though expensive around here, I get the idea that there's a ranch somewhere in PA so it may be more reasonable for you.
For Lucinda, did you try rubbing some soups on her lips? Sometimes 'forcing' in this way gets them interested enough to start eating the soups. If she still is resisting by this evening, you might add some soaked kibble mush to her soup plate to get her thinking it's food.
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Post by bindiferret89 on Jul 22, 2009 20:56:28 GMT -5
Thawing out tonight's soup right now...I'll let you know how that goes. I put a blob in everyone's mouth with my finger and ended up doing a few drops in each mouth with a syringe after all, which I was very careful about. Lucinda's just a brat.  How exactly should I do soup w/ kibble? Moisten the kibble and mix it or dribble some soup on top? |
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Post by spiritualtramp on Jul 22, 2009 22:00:48 GMT -5
I would do one of two things, either or really. Soak kibble in warm water until it's mushy, and then blend into the soup for an even consistency, or crush the kibble up into fine crumbles. This way you can lessen the amounts daily and it won't be so noticeable to the finicky little miss.
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Post by bindiferret89 on Jul 23, 2009 11:43:09 GMT -5
Ugh, I was in the emergency room again from about 1:00-3:00 this morning and I ended up sleeping on my couch last night. No alarm clock and my mom let me sleep till noon! The ferrets haven't eaten since about midnight, so they've gone just over 12 hours without food, which is horrible for them. I'm fast-thawing soup and trying not to be angry because my mom was just doing what she thought was best for ME, and I probably did need the rest. I just feel so guilty about the ferrets being neglected all morning.
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Post by spiritualtramp on Jul 23, 2009 15:28:07 GMT -5
Oh Amber are you okay? Did your throat start bleeding again?? I hope you're alright! Taking care of yourself is important too, so don't beat yourself up. The kids are all young and healthy and though you don't want to do that all the time, once isn't going to kill them. How did they do this afternoon/evening?
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Post by bindiferret89 on Jul 23, 2009 16:57:56 GMT -5
Yeah, my throat started up really badly. I lost like a cup of blood, but I'm okay. I went to the emergency room and did ice water gargles, which stopped most of the bleeding and then my surgeon came in the middle of the night and chemically cauterized it. Jeesh...and they told me tonsil removal was a simple procedure!
Gave them the Duk Soup/cat food mix and made it about the same consistency as the chicken soup I've been giving, but mixed with kibble. It didn't go over well. Even Moki and Ginny looked at me like, "Mom, this isn't the good stuff!" Lucinda wouldn't touch it of course, so I ended up giving those the three older girls dried kibble too. Nuka and Sully didn't seem to enjoy it, but they did eat some of it.
I'm eating my dinner now, but I got more chicken and two ice cube trays (yay!) so I'm going to make soup for them when I'm done eating. And then I'm considering sleeping like a ferret for a few hours...haha
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