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Post by katt on Sept 3, 2010 15:14:08 GMT -5
Yaaaay!!!! I really like the new signature pic by the way. Such a cute little girl. Well, looks like she passed the first big step. Congrats! You should be able to leave the soup in the cage for, oh, up to 12 hours or so without any problems. Ferrets typically won't eat food that is bad, so I wouldn't worry too much, esp because right now all of the ingredients are cooked. For the next few days start taking her kibble away before bedtime so that she gets a little hungry. Don't worry - since she is nice and healthy this won't hurt her, just make her hungry. Then, give her soup in the morning, let her eat that, and then put the kibble back in for her to munch on during the day. If you don't have time in the morning to wait for her to eat before putting the kibble back in, flip flop the schedule so that you take out the kibble in the morning, and feed her soupies at night. Since she is eating the thick soup, try to keep giving her that, since the idea is to get it really think eventually anyways. Stick with that a few days, and you can progressively make the soup a little thicker every few days or so. If she doesn't eat the thicker soup, thin it up a bit and wait a few days before making it thick again. Keep that up and we wll see how she does. I have a feeling she will do great. Once she has been eating the soup with the boiled chicken for a few days without an issue, we will add raw chicken to the mix, then start to withdraw the kibble and cooked chicken. Then we slowly thicken the soup, start adding tiny chunks, etc etc. Sound like a plan? Let me know if that sounds good to you and if you are feeding the kibble at night or morning and we will see how she does for the next day or two and keep going from there.
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Post by maddiesmommy on Sept 3, 2010 23:18:33 GMT -5
that sounds great ! im so excitied i was so happy when i see her eating the soupie. i took the kibble out of her cage so that way in the morning she will be super hungry and want to eat the soup ill make it more thick then i did today. hopefully she continues this way so we can finish. i have a whole ice tray full of soupies so im thinking if i feed her one soup at morning and one at night she should be done in 5 days with majority of the soup. after this do i continue to feed her thick soup or do we move on to the raw food?
i plan on feeding her soup everyday twice a day so in between do i leave the kibble or no?
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Post by katt on Sept 4, 2010 3:45:55 GMT -5
that sounds great ! im so excitied i was so happy when i see her eating the soupie. i took the kibble out of her cage so that way in the morning she will be super hungry and want to eat the soup ill make it more thick then i did today. hopefully she continues this way so we can finish. i have a whole ice tray full of soupies so im thinking if i feed her one soup at morning and one at night she should be done in 5 days with majority of the soup. after this do i continue to feed her thick soup or do we move on to the raw food? i plan on feeding her soup everyday twice a day so in between do i leave the kibble or no? I would leave it in for now, unless you plan on leaving the soup in for the day. That is really up to you though. As long as she is getting enough food it should be fine to take it out. If she is used to free feeding though it might be good to leave something in the cage. I would maybe put in a cube or two of the frozen soup after her breakfast soup and let her gnaw on that. It will stay good longer since it starts out frozen and who knows it might even help get her used to the idea of actually chewing her food if she decided to try and chew on the cubes before they thaw. haha If you want to feed her the soupies you just made until it is gone, that is ok. Otherwise, I would hold onto that as a backup (in case she decides she doesn't like the new soups) and in say 2-3 days, make a smaller batch of new soup using a similar recipe but with raw meat and kibble, (or with no kibble, just meat). I have to check into that first though and make sure that mixing the raw and kibble in the soup is ok. I am 99% sure it is, but whole raw and kibble digest at different rates and I don't want to give her a belly ache. I should know the answer to that really soon though and then I will get back to you asap.
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Post by maddiesmommy on Sept 4, 2010 11:17:51 GMT -5
well today i did feed her more soup from the ice tray she seems to eat like nothing its just really thin soup so i was thinking of making another soupie just more thick. should i use the same recipe as before ? also how do i leave chunks in who soup do i put less water? or add little pieces of chicken afterwards?
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Post by katt on Sept 4, 2010 12:58:44 GMT -5
For now lets stick with the same recipe, but this time put in less kibble and a little more cooked chicken. I would only make a really small batch though. For now lets skip the chunks because we want to put raw in there first and then make sure she will eat raw soup before adding raw chunks. As soon as I make sure that putting kibble and raw in the soup won't upset her belly then we will swap the cooked chicken puree with raw chicken puree. Once she eats that, you can make the soup, then mix in some little kibble sized chunks of raw. For now though, lets decrease the amount of kibble first. We want to wean her off of that, so if we decrease the kibble now, then we can put less kibble in the raw soup and I think that will help to get her eating chunks that don't taste like kibble a little quicker. I have a feeling that she won't miss the kibble much. haha Make just a small batch of the same recipe (but with less kibble - maybe half the amount) and feed her that, then tomorrow hopefully we can swap out the boiled chicken with raw chicken.
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Post by katt on Sept 4, 2010 14:05:41 GMT -5
Ok update. In your next batch of soup, try taking out ALL of the kibble and seeing if she eats that. If not, just add in a little bit until she will eat it. Then when she is eating soup with no kibble we will add the raw. Something you may or may not want to add to the soup is some squash baby food or canned pumpkin (check the ingredients for sugars or additives) as this adds a little fiber to help her have less runny poops while she is not getting solid food. A few teaspoons to a table spoon should do the trick, but you can play with it a little bit too and see what works best for Maddie. Every ferret is different.
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Post by maddiesmommy on Sept 5, 2010 13:00:07 GMT -5
Well I made the soup using no kibble she won't eat it by herself but she will eat it from us feeding her my bf fed her the whole soup now what do I dO
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Post by maddiesmommy on Sept 5, 2010 13:03:14 GMT -5
I've also been putting the cooked chicken that I boil into her soup she seemed to eat it fine b4 but it was more watery then today the soup I made was more thick do i put her kibble in-between or leave it out till the night and feed her another soup
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Post by katt on Sept 5, 2010 14:36:01 GMT -5
Go ahead and have the kibble in there during the night, or the day, but not both. Are you putting the cooked chicken in there in chunks? If so, just blend the cooked chicken into the soup. If she ate the soup being hand fed, go ahead and try giving her the soup again. If she eats it on her own then fantastic let me know and we will go from there. If she still will not eat it on her own, add just a little bit of kibble and try again. Increase the kibble until you have the smallest amount that you can possibly put in there, but still have her eat the soup. Let her eat that for two days, then half the amount of kibble. Keep halving the amount of kibble each day - or every other day depending on her cooperation lol - until there is no kibble left in the soup. If she won't eat a soup with less kibble, put a tiny bit more in there until she eats it. If she still won't go down to eating the soup without the kibble after a few days of trying that, we will try a slightly different approach. Am I making sense here? lol Let me know if anything I said is confusingly worded or if you have questions.
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Post by maddiesmommy on Sept 5, 2010 17:43:45 GMT -5
Lol u made sense I just had to read it twice I have been adding the chicken but just adding it blended with the soup I will try at 8 when I get out today to feed her the soup why is that she will eat hand feed bit not on her own it's so sad I have to put it on a spoon and give it to her I'll let u know in about a hr how she reacts to it
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Post by katt on Sept 5, 2010 20:57:45 GMT -5
Lol u made sense I just had to read it twice I have been adding the chicken but just adding it blended with the soup I will try at 8 when I get out today to feed her the soup why is that she will eat hand feed bit not on her own it's so sad I have to put it on a spoon and give it to her I'll let u know in about a hr how she reacts to it Ok, yeah keep adding it blended. We want to replace it with raw before adding chunks. I am not totally sure why she would only eat it from your hand... Sometimes they do need a little convincing, and maybe she just felt a little unsure about the change and was more comfortable if you guys were holding it? Let me know how she takes it tonight.
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Post by maddiesmommy on Sept 5, 2010 22:05:58 GMT -5
well tonight she did eat it on her own since i made it more watery she doesnt like her soup thick she rather have it watery after she ate it for a while i did take it out and finally put the kibble in her cage. tommorrow should i do the same or not?
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Post by katt on Sept 5, 2010 23:29:53 GMT -5
well tonight she did eat it on her own since i made it more watery she doesnt like her soup thick she rather have it watery after she ate it for a while i did take it out and finally put the kibble in her cage. tommorrow should i do the same or not? If she is eating it on her own that is really good. Keep it watery and feed her the same way for the next 2 days before we change things on her again. Then we will start swapping out the cooked meat in the soup for raw. You just took the kibble out and that is the fist big step.
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Post by maddiesmommy on Sept 6, 2010 9:40:24 GMT -5
thats true i fed her this morning and made the soup a little watery BUT she will only dap her tounge in it she wont eat the chicken part. its so hard because im trying to show her its food by putting it on my hand shell just lick it she wont eat it. i feel so bad lol i just want to say to her and shell understand " come on maddie its not going to hurt you ill never hurt you" but instead she just licks the soup but wont eat the mushy part
the good thing is she will eat it with no kibble it doesnt seem to bother it she just likes it really thin and watery so she wont have to dig in it. but she does do that with her kibble lol
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Post by katt on Sept 6, 2010 15:48:21 GMT -5
hahaa Yeah. Most ferrets get that "why are you trying to poison me mommy?" attitude when making the switch. As long as she is actually eating it, watery soup is ok. If she begins not eating it, then we can add some kibble back in. Don't be afraid to take steps back. One step back, two steps forward. As long as she has kibble available during the day or night, and is eating the watery soup she should be ok. Lets stick with the watery soup for now and let her get used to the idea of that. If it would make you feel better, or you are worried about her not eating enough of it, add a small amount of kibble. Keep me posted on how she is doing. I will be gone until later tonight, but I will have my iPhone with me if you have any questions or any issues come up. Stick with it, she will get there.
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