Potential new menu for my girls

[champagne]

Hello,

My cats have been on a completely raw diet for the past 5 months (since I got them) and I loved what it has done for them.

I've been researching raw diets for ferrets for months now but haven't found any good websites that really go into detail about it. Until stumbled on this forum and saw what people are feeding (and how) their ferrets, and the success they're having with it. So here's what I think I will switch my ferrets to (from their Evo Ferret Kibble):

Breakfast:
Natural Instincts brand raw food
Ingreditens:

Non-medicated meat (there's Turkey, Lamb, Chicken, Goat, Rabbit, Bison, Elk to choose from) with bone, liver and heart, wild salmon oil, cod liver oil, full spectrum vitamin E

Dinner:
Feeder mouse or rat (most likely from http://www.canadianfeeders.com)

I'm not sure what the ratio will be but the total amount (for each ferret) will be around 3 ounces per day.

Please let me know what you think of this menu for them. Any feedback is hugely appreciated, I want to get them on the best possible diet I can.

Justin

[Heather]

Sounds fairly good, not bad at all. Curious, is the supplements part of the commercial grind (I'm guessing that it's a grind and not whole meats) or is that what you're going to add? The reason for my concern is the Cod liver oil. There is already liver in the grind, so the cod liver oil should be only given about once a week....it's the vit a concern. If it's already in the grind then chances are it's only trace and probably not a problem. Other than that, convince your little ones to eat a min. of 3 different types of protein and your good to go .
ciao

[champagne]

Thanks for the response Heather!

The product is part of the commercial grind. My cats really like it and it's doing great for them, and there's zero veg in it! As far as the different types of protein, is there any kind of meat that a ferret shouldn't eat for any reason...

[horse656]

hehe, thanks for the website, i didn't know about it.

[sherrylynne]

The meats they shouldn't have are things that have been treated/altered, like bacon, ham, sausages, etc. Otherwise, it's all good!

[zoologist]

sounds like a good menu! personally for me I would feed something other than rats/mice for dinner every time. Once you get them on the rats/mice maybe you could think about also feeding rabbits and chicks? I think if you opt out of the ground chicken and instead feed chicken you cut up (legs, wings, breast with ribs, backs, neck, etc) it would give them more teeth action and keep their jaws strong as well as give them something to challenge. Just a thought