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Post by horse656 on Jul 27, 2010 8:01:11 GMT -5
she seems to be eating. but i made a batch of soup to feed her after food. it might just be that she's not hungry at the time of eating? could that be a reason. i give them around 2-3 ounces at each meal. they get feed around7-8 in the morning, and any time between 6-9 at night. usually at around 6ish. i think the real way you know you're hooked on feeding raw, is when you organize your freeze into section for "organs" "normal meat" and "bone in meat" i was excited after doing that oh, and when you come home from the store with 2 giant packs of chicken wings for sale, and 4 packs of chicken back. i think i'm set for bones for awhile
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Post by sherrylynne on Jul 27, 2010 18:34:18 GMT -5
I'm glad she's eating. I gather her weight is going back up again? And just to let you know? My deepfreeze in the basement holds on different shelves: Muscle meats Bone in Organ Whole prey My above the fridge freezer holds human food
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Post by horse656 on Jul 28, 2010 14:03:32 GMT -5
i don't have any whole prey yet, but i think I'm going to order some. i don't have a scale that can be used to weigh them, but she seems to fine. we didn't have the vet appointment as the vet was the only one in the city for exotics at the time, so if we did we could have been waiting for awhile. so its on Saturday.
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Post by sherrylynne on Jul 28, 2010 20:33:17 GMT -5
ok. It's a good idea to keep an eye on weight, since they will drop when they come off the carbs from the kibbles, and you don't want to mistake that for weight loss from not eating enough. I had one like that. I honestly thought she was eating just fine, and it turned out her cage mate was a piggy! Her weight loss hit me suddenly one day, and I realized that while I'd seen her mouthing and chewing on meat, she wasn't actually eating enough to keep her going!
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Post by horse656 on Jul 31, 2010 13:59:02 GMT -5
so some good news. Belle gained some weight, but not that much. she is now 0.72kg, and Pebbles is 0.86kg, she went up 0.6kg from last time. she's my fatty.
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Post by sherrylynne on Jul 31, 2010 18:53:53 GMT -5
Hey- it's a weight gain, and it means she's eating at least some! So yes, that is good news
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Post by horse656 on Aug 1, 2010 17:08:31 GMT -5
yup is milk ok for them to have? i was never sure. i read a book and it said it made them really sick and something else, but i searched the internet and it didn't come up with anything bad like that. would straight from the cow be better than store bought if they can have milk?
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Post by sherrylynne on Aug 2, 2010 8:54:47 GMT -5
Since ferrets are lactose intolerant, neither would be good for them While you can use a very little bit of heavy cream in soup to help with transitioning, or weight gain(heavy cream has little lactose), milk itself will likely do more harm than good.
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Post by horse656 on Aug 3, 2010 14:30:10 GMT -5
oh, lol. you learn something everyday
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Post by sherrylynne on Aug 3, 2010 18:06:06 GMT -5
Agreed! And hey- I'm still learning, too
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Post by horse656 on Aug 9, 2010 14:45:57 GMT -5
i'm thinking about feeding fish and sea food maybe. how would i go about getting them to try it, as i heard some ferrets won't touch it.
are worms ok? its been raining buckets alot, so i was thinking maybe i could grab a few from the ground and try to see if they want them. we haven't used anything on the grass in awhile, i don't think we've used anything this year.
if they do like them, i know you can buy worms somewhere, does it matter on the type of worm?
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Post by sherrylynne on Aug 9, 2010 16:43:12 GMT -5
Fish and seafood no more than weekly, and simply give it to them, see if they'll take to it. Out of 9, I've got 2 who will willingly eat salmon, and only one who likes smelts- and she likes them so much she'll make herself ill from overeating Oh- and one who will inhale shrimp if he can get them! Any kind of worm is fine for them. If they'll take them, you can include it regularly on a weekly basis. One of mine will slurp up earthworms from the soil. And I don't know if you ever saw the video Ginny posted about her girl trying them? If not- it's in the enrichment section!
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Post by horse656 on Aug 10, 2010 10:53:13 GMT -5
ok. great so only once a week for worms? I'll be trying different things. if we can get fish on sale. we have a vet appointment tomorrow morning. i was reading up on some threads and i found this one holisticferret.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=raw&action=display&thread=1120it said somewhere that you should feed fresh food? i can't get food straight from the cow or the chicken, we usually buy from the store, so i don't know if that is considered fresh? i don't think so. also, how important is the three different sources thing? because for their bones they usually get chicken, which takes up 4 days, i maybe get turkey necks but i don't think they could get the bones all down just yet. i haven't found chicken necks anywhere, but that's still chicken. i haven't gotten around to getting prey yet, but i think i might have found somewhere to get rabbit. and i can order mice and rats online. so that will help for the bones. i just feel bad because i think they are starting to really dislike chicken. well, just get annoyed with it. they get liver, which i believe is beef or wild boar, and heart, which is either turkey or wild boar. so would that be three sources? or is it three different sources of like meat meat? i don't know if that made any sense or not. also, i don't know how big of pieces i should be feeding them. Pebbles will eat a whole turkey heart, but that doesn't have bones. should i put in a whole chicken wing in to see how she works with it? I've been giving them chopped up chicken wings, split down with the wing and chopped in half with the drumlette. I'm still worried about belle, so I've been giving it to her chopped up, and whatnot. i think i might give her more soups. I'm a paranoid mommy, and were going to the vet tomorrow to see whats up. i hope it's nothing and I'm just freaking out over nothing. she seems slow with bones maybe I'm excepting too much out of her? but then again maybe not, since it's been months?? i just keep adding to this as i think of more things. lol.
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Post by sherrylynne on Aug 10, 2010 22:08:15 GMT -5
It has to be a minimum of 3 different proteins. You are feeding chicken, turkey, beef, possibly wild boar. That's four. When you get mice and rats- that will be 6, and rabbit for 7! Ideal For the heart, you would be able to tell the difference between turkey and boar- the boar heart will be a LOT bigger! Turkey heart is only a few times larger than chicken heart. With the turkey necks, just cleaver the bejeepers out of it That's what I do. Actually kind of scary when you think of me wielding a cleaver at 7am because I've not done it all up when I should have Out of curiosity- the wild boar you're getting, where are you getting it? If it's from a hunter, you do realize you need to freeze wild meats for about 2 weeks to be sure all the parasites are dead? Try just giving the chicken for bone in days until you can get whole prey and/or turkey necks. When you do- rotate out as much as possible. You don't want them getting too tired of a meat, otherwise you have to give them a month or two break from it to get them eating it again. At least I do with mine. When you say "slow" with bone, do you mean she takes a long time to eat them? Or that she's simply not accepting them yet? If it's the second one, I'd definitely give them the whole chicken wings straight up, for about 3 days in a row. If it's the first, just let her eat in her own time. If Pebbles is grabbing and running off with it, try securing a couple of wings with shower hooks to the side of the cage. That way, Belle can take her time eating. As far as size goes- some give them a whole pork chop, some cut the meat "mouse" sized, so it's up to you. As long as the pieces are large enough for them to have to chew chunks off to eat, it's all good. Personally, I give pieces about 2X3 inches.
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Post by horse656 on Aug 11, 2010 7:33:56 GMT -5
ok. oh, i forgot to add pork in there as well. i have pork, and the kidney i got is pork as well i think. what i'm giving them now isn't bite sized so they do have to chew, but it isn't huge either. we get the boar heart from a place that raises them. bearbrook farm. i have stuff chopped up for them, so I'll use that and then give them whole chicken wings. its the second one, the slow with accepting it. Pebbles actually just grabs one piece, runs off to a corner and eats it, while belle will eat over the plate. its kinda funny. well i have to go to the vets now. so i'll post later on whats up. edits* the vet didn't find anything out of the ordinary, so i just think it maybe have been a cold/flu. the vet did give her some barium. i really liked her until she mentioned her view on raw feeding.
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