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Post by Heather on Apr 12, 2010 22:58:13 GMT -5
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Name: HF Forum Username: Calysta 1. Where did you first learn about natural diets for ferrets? Google searches, in all honesty I had switched my dogs, to a natural homemade more holistic diet and thought, hmmmm I wonder if I could put Abbey on a holistic homemade natural diet. 2. Please describe the type of diet you would like assistance in switching your ferret(s) to. Unsure, would love assistance. 3. Why are you interested in switching your ferrets to a natural diet? Well it works for my dogs, and Abbey is just as much my baby, so why leave her out? 4. Do you understand that switching your ferret to a natural diet can be a lengthy, arduous process? Its not an overnight switch. It can be a commitment of several weeks or even months. Your HF Mentor will be more then happy to assist you in switchng your ferret(s) to a natural diet, but you need to be equally as commited. If you aren't willing to tough out a potentially lengthy switching process, or if you have major life changes approaching (baby on the way, moving, starting school, getting married/divorced, etc) then it might be a better idea to wait on switching your ferret's diet until you have more time. Are you willing to make the commitment? Yes of course 5. How many ferrets do you currently have? What are their names? Ages? Genders? Do they have any health problems? Are they overweight? Underweight? I have one, Abbey Road, she is female, no current health probs, and she is one and a half, I had two, but Sweeney Todd passed away a few months ago, he was 5. 6. What diet do you currently feed your ferrets? (Please include all treats, supplements, etc) In all honesty Kitten food. I do on occasion give her tidbits of raw meat knuckles with meat chunks from the butcher shop. 7. Have you ever tried to switch your ferrets to a natural diet in the past? If yes, what happened? Nope 8. What additional information about yourself or your ferrets would you like to share? Don't know, I do hope to find Abbey a companion. 9. How often during the week do you have access to a computer? Every day 10. Please post a picture of each of your ferrets (if possible). [/i] Hi and welcome to the mentoring program. In a little while your mentor (Zoshi) will introduce herself and you can get started on a new adventure in natural ferret care and diets. Please remember to post regularly (daily or as per arranged with your mentor) so that your mentor can assist you move along safely in this adventure. If you experience computer difficulties or are going to be away, please notify your mentor and most of all relax and have fun . Your mentor is here to help you on this journey. ciao
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Zoshi
Cageless and Roamin' Free
Raw Feeder[/color]
Actually, he's a cave bear <3
Posts: 203
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Post by Zoshi on Apr 13, 2010 17:46:17 GMT -5
Hello Calysta! The name's Zoshi, I'll be helping you out with your switch. A little about me and my ferrets - I'm an artsy-writer type girl with three ferrets and two tanks of fish, and a budgie and dog that belong to the whole family. The three fuzzbutts are Tikki - 4, Coco - 1, and Mis - 1. Tikki is the resident ninja, Coco is her ninja-apprentice, and Mis is the crazy goof that likes cuddles. The three eat a raw meaty bones-frankenprey raw diet with occasional commercial freeze dried raw added in on organ days. The RMB/Frankenprey diet consists of feeding mostly meat parts that you could find at the store - chicken, pork, lamb, etc, as well as organ meats over the course of the week. The younger two have been on a full raw diet for just about a year now, and Tikki has been fully transitioned since about September, since she was a little stubborn about the switch. I see that you have your dogs on a natural diet, so I'm sure you know about the benefits of it and don't need me to rattle on about them, haha. The improvements can be astounding. Now, let's get down to business! xD It's a good thing Abbey is getting a taste of the raw. Since you have her on kibble, you can try wetting down the kibble to make it a little mushy, and mixing in pieces of meat with it, and see if she'll accept that. I used chicken to start the switch, but if there's a different meat that she's already tried a bit of you can of course use that. If she isn't too crazy about the texture of mushy kibble, you can try crushing some kibble and dusting small pieces of meat in it. Let me know how things go. :3
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Post by calysta on Apr 14, 2010 1:59:41 GMT -5
Wow, sorry such a ditz, just found this after i read your email. Ok, My name is Calysta, I have TWO ferrets now, they are my babies, I have a cat Corrine she is also mine, and the dogs are mine and my roomies, we have four. I am also a creative artsy type, getting ready to start college and majoring in Arts, how cool is that! So what kind's of meat, chicken, beef, ground beef. Does it have to be fresh fresh, or can it be defrosted? Just curious, the only dumb question is the unasked one. Oh I'm currently feeding her 8-1 High Protein Diet, switched her from the kibble, this has no grain.
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Post by calysta on Apr 14, 2010 13:57:27 GMT -5
Ok, *giggles* , success, at least halfway. So I knew Abbey won't eat mush, she has a hard time with wet kibble. So I went ahead and cut up bit size pieces of raw boneless chicken breast. Well, i ground up some kibble, and dusted the bites with it. Well Abbey, after a sniff or two, finally went over there took a lick, and was kinda weirded? Well I guess she decided to give it another try, for a few minutes later when I went back to check on her, she was eating the chicken. WOOT WOOT!!!! Now Remy, he is a different story. He smelled it a few times, and wants nothing to do with it. I gave him a few minutes, and he wouldn't even give it a chance. I even hoped if he saw Abbey enjoying it, and no he won't even look at Abbey eating it. BUT, ;D the way I see it is as a Victory, I did get Abbey to eat it and so I should be excited there, could be worse neither would've of taken it. I'll check again later and see if Remy gave it a shot. In the meantime what do you think???
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Post by calysta on Apr 14, 2010 14:16:35 GMT -5
Update: Remy~ My roomie said he was eating, but my guess only a few bites, but since I didn't see, I don't know. I'm going to leave the food in their for another hour, than I will remove it and take them outside for an outing. I will try again tonite, with a fresh batch of chicken bites, oh wow I had no idea how exciting this would be.....
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Post by calysta on Apr 14, 2010 14:54:06 GMT -5
oh here is some pics of the kibble mix.... Before, me mixing the kibble chunky dust and raw chicken breasts. After what they got.... Oh and my newest pic of my babies.... Sorry Digital Cameras are addictive...
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Zoshi
Cageless and Roamin' Free
Raw Feeder[/color]
Actually, he's a cave bear <3
Posts: 203
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Post by Zoshi on Apr 14, 2010 18:22:29 GMT -5
Yay! Another artsy person! I hope things go well for you in that direction. Art classes in college can be pretty fun and exciting. Oh, your fuzzies! OMG they are adorable! I love the name Remy, and he's such a cutie. Haha, I remember your thread now, where you talked about getting Remy. :3 To answer the meat question, you can go with chopped up meats (chicken, pork, beef, veal, lamb), or ground, depending on how you see your ferrets react to it. If they do well eating chunks of meat, then you don't have to do ground. Ground is handy to use in soupies, though. Chunks of meat can stay out a bit longer than ground. Defrosted meat is just fine. Ferrets need Taurine in their diet, and Taurine does deteriorate when the meats are frozen (it's mostly found in red meats and hearts) so what some people do is get beef or chicken hearts and chop them up and give a few pieces a day or every other day. I tried to do that, but unless its in soupies my guys won't eat it. x3 What I do is I got a Taurine supplement in capsule form, and I sprinkle a few capsules over their food three times a week. Right now, while they're still getting some kibble in them, the Taurine isn't much of a problem, but when we get further on in the switch and they start eating different meats we'll see that they get the variety they need in their diet. :3 It sounds like things are starting out well! It's great to hear that Abbey is eating the kibble-dusted chunks. But silly Remy, he doesn't realize how good it is. You can try making the chunks of meat smaller before dusting. What I used to do with my picky Tikki is cut around 1 inch long thin strips of chicken breast and dusted those in the kibble. She didn't like eating large pieces of meat at first, and since these pieces were thin, she had an easier time with them. Maybe you can try the same with Remy? For now, maybe he needs to taste more kibble and less chicken. Then, after a day or two, you can start making the pieces slightly thicker, and see how he takes them. Oh, just FYI before I forget - if they're still eating a full meal of kibble, it's a good idea to take out the kibble three-four hours before giving them any raw. This is because the kibble takes longer to digest, and if they eat a lot of kibble and then eat raw, the raw stays in the gut longer than it should and it gives any bacteria that might be there a chance to latch on. Oh, here's another idea that I used with Tikki when I couldn't get her to try the kibbley-chunks. If Remy isn't going for the chunks/strips, you can see if he likes the taste of chicken baby food. If he does, you can mix in a little ground chicken, or really teeny pieces of chicken breast, with a little chicken baby food and let him try that. It'd be more of a treat sort of thing, to get him used to the flavor of the raw chicken. Don't worry if things are going to be moving a little slow at first - every ferret has it's own time for when they're ready to move on to the next stage of the switch. Just keep an eye on how much they're eating and how willing they are to eat what you give them, and you'll get an idea about when they're ready to move on to the next step. :3 I hope things go well. Maybe Remy will surprise us tonight, and chow down on some chicken? ;3
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Post by calysta on Apr 14, 2010 20:37:01 GMT -5
yeah, she is actually devouring the chicken. I am going to put out kibble tonite, because Remy is being a butt, I tried mashing and mushing his, he just threw a tantrum. I tthink Abbey is going to be a cakewalk, Remy on the other hand. Thanks, I will keep you posted how tomorrow goes.
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Zoshi
Cageless and Roamin' Free
Raw Feeder[/color]
Actually, he's a cave bear <3
Posts: 203
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Post by Zoshi on Apr 15, 2010 21:41:42 GMT -5
It's great that at least Abbey is making things a little easier for you. I'm sure those tidbits of meat you were giving her helped out. :3
Oh man Remy sounds like he is going to be a brat about the switch. x) If he doesn't take bigger pieces of raw well, you might try to make a small soup batch of really well-blended mushy kibble and raw and try putting a dab on his nose or his lips for him to lick off. He's most likely put off by the taste of the raw.
I've also seen people have some luck with another method - I just remembered it. I haven't done it myself, but some people have had ferrets that were okay with seared/boiled meat but not raw. If he's still balking at trying raw, you can try to take a few small pieces of chicken and boil or sear them a little, so that the outside is cooked. He might like the taste of sear/boiled meat and when he starts eating, he'll get a taste of the raw inside. Then you'd slowly lessen how much you sear/boil them until they're almost entirely raw, and then just plain raw.
It's just another idea that you can try if the other things aren't working. :3
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Post by calysta on Apr 15, 2010 22:45:33 GMT -5
Ok, Remy is being a total butt, he hid he bowl of mush, wouldn't try it, buried it under the newspaper and went and hid. WOULDN"T EVEN TRY IT. Now Abbey is loving the chicken, tho she can be messy with it. It is fun to watch her shake her head when she get's a piece and watch her chomp it down.
Remy is going to be the pain, tho I think we gathered that. So I have been putting kibble in the cage, Abbey seems to prefer the chicken, Remy runs up and gobbles the kibble, but tomorrow morning I will remove it and fix up the kibble bites for Abbey and I will try searing some chicken for Remy and dusting it in kibble. Gosh I hope this works..... He is such a pain. LOL!!!!
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Zoshi
Cageless and Roamin' Free
Raw Feeder[/color]
Actually, he's a cave bear <3
Posts: 203
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Post by Zoshi on Apr 17, 2010 12:18:05 GMT -5
Go Abbey! Haha, she's getting some of her instinct out with the head shakes. It's great that she's so enthusiastic about it. Oh man Remy, he's just totally anti-change here. x3 He doesn't understand why he can't eat his crunchy cookies all the time, haha. Hopefully the seared chicken will work for him. It could be the texture or the taste of the raw chicken (or both) that's making him uneasy with it. Hmmm... If he's still a little iffy about it, you can also try getting a can of tuna in water and drizzling the water over the pieces. If he likes fishy tastes, then he might go for that. :3 I'll be keeping my fingers crossed for you.
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Post by calysta on Apr 18, 2010 23:58:53 GMT -5
thanks, i will try that and i will keep you posted, and once again thank you for all your help. I really do appreciate it! you rock the cashbah!
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Zoshi
Cageless and Roamin' Free
Raw Feeder[/color]
Actually, he's a cave bear <3
Posts: 203
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Post by Zoshi on Apr 25, 2010 0:12:52 GMT -5
Hey there! It's been a little while, just wanted to see how things were going with your switch? Hope things are going well. :3
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Post by calysta on Apr 29, 2010 14:20:20 GMT -5
ok, sorry i have been so busy trying to deal with school and a move. I will attempt this all again on the 3rd. Things just got so hectic around here, I am sorry. Thanks once again for your help.
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Zoshi
Cageless and Roamin' Free
Raw Feeder[/color]
Actually, he's a cave bear <3
Posts: 203
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Post by Zoshi on Apr 29, 2010 15:38:43 GMT -5
All right, that's no problem. Thanks much for letting us know! I hope things go well with school and moving. Whenever you're ready just pop back in and we'll start up again. :3
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