ls84
Going Natural
Posts: 102
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Post by ls84 on Dec 25, 2009 21:49:03 GMT -5
I currently feed my three raw, two are fine eating wings, drumsticks, chicken chunks, pork chunks, chicken necks. Its actually my youngest ferret surprisingly that refuses fresh raw and will only eat rehydrated raw Stella and Chewys, and freeze dried AFS nibblets. Im working on him. I'd LOVE to switch to whole prey, I already have a whole freezer of mice and rats for my snakes. I just love the idea of feeding a whole animal to each ferret, seems simple and easy and more convenient. They are NOT interested at all in pinkies, and I have already offered regular small mice just to see what happens. How would I go about getting them to see them as food? I tried cutting the pinkies in pieces and mixing it in raw soup but they all ate around it. Im also currently trying to switch my cats to whole prey too....
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Post by Heather on Dec 26, 2009 0:22:33 GMT -5
I"ve heard of a number of different ways. I've heard of cutting them up as you did. I know of a couple of people who were successful at grinding them up with their regular diet and then increasing them and eventually using chunks and then whole (just like you would whole meat). You can also play chase and wiggle. Attaching the mouse to a string and letting them chase it around, allowing them to catch it and play tug and actually biting and chewing pieces off (please note that I'm talking about a dead mouse here ) You can also play tug of war with the mouse as well. I'm in the position where the rest of the businesses usually teaches the newbies how to eat the rodents, so I don't have to teach the newbies. Captain Jack and Calypso, I just put mice in their cage and left them to it but then they were also seeing the others eat and steal mice so it was only a couple of weeks and they were eating mice. They've still not developed a taste for rats though . Good luck ciao
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Post by Lynxie on Dec 26, 2009 12:15:15 GMT -5
You could always try actually blending them into your soup.
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Post by sherrylynne on Dec 26, 2009 12:18:59 GMT -5
I had to chop and mix the pinkies into their regular meat a few times before they quit picking around them, and actually ate. When we went to hoppers(frozen/thawed), I cut open the belly and squirted in 'tone. That way, they would lick the tone and get the taste for the mice at the same time.
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Post by goingpostal on Dec 31, 2009 16:29:47 GMT -5
I had no luck with tone, mine would lick it off and then leave it, it actually took one of them to love the mice and the rest to slowly get interested or just jealous over the new "toy", then they would nibble a bit and pretty soon got right down to chewing. I only have had 2 that went straight for a mouse and dug in, the rest took a couple months to catch on, now they all get so excited it's really fun to watch.
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Post by fuzziesr4me on Jan 15, 2010 11:12:41 GMT -5
As weird as it sounds.. I played with it. Thawed out mice in warm water, and basically held it by it's tail and dangled it like a toy. After a few attempts, the ferret usually rips into it a bit and from there it's on. I know, sounds bad but it worked. Most of my kids hower (even 8 and 9 year olds) got interested in what the others were eating. My two youngest started on chicks, mice, baby quail as babies. The others eventually just joined in.
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