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Post by Heather on Oct 26, 2010 20:23:36 GMT -5
He's adorable What a beautiful little one. I have had 3 black tailed DEWs or whatever they're called. Two were marshals, the other a Path Valley.....all 3 were deafies. ciao
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Post by jacksmomma on Oct 27, 2010 11:46:17 GMT -5
Thanks Heather. i think so too last night he ate ALL of the chicken liver (before jack even got a bite) and then had diarrhea allll night. he seems fine this morning but i'm going to have to be more careful with that little piggy, he eats like a bottomless pit
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Post by Heather on Oct 27, 2010 22:35:16 GMT -5
My understanding these little one will eat anything that's available....all that liver oh, what a tummy ache They eat everything, and lots of it. Little furry tummies with teeth I think the best description came from a breeder who was describing her first raw fed litter. "I'm afraid that if I fall down when bringing in their dinner they will eat me too" I'm glad that he's eating so well. I hope his tummy ache has righted itself today ciao
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Post by jacksmomma on Oct 29, 2010 12:30:19 GMT -5
Well my vet just called me after a conference call she had with Dr. Hawkins (sp?) over at U.C. Davis about Jack. Although stones in ferrets are still very rare, in the last 4-5 years the cysteine stones have become the most common, replacing struvite stones. Although Dr Hawkins could not say either way on the raw diet and its effect on stone abundance, she did know that the ferrets she has worked with have done best on Totallyferret (thats not happening) and whole mice. Now i'm really motivated to get the mice into Jack's (and Brady's) diet. I will get started this weekend. Hopefully the bottomless pit (Brady) will teach Jack mice are food and it will be pretty hands off for me. I just can't see myself cutting up mice, not when i used to have them for pets
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Post by Heather on Oct 29, 2010 15:52:46 GMT -5
I'll bet the solution has nothing to do with totally ferret but with the added moisture of the prey. There also may be trace minerals and general cleaning out that is done by the fur and other things that aren't digested that helps too. I can't help but notice when my guys have had rabbit and rat (not so much mouse) that they have these stools that remind me very much of owl scat. The stools is full on long hair wrapped neatly and tightly around the undigested bone. Hopefully, your little mobile tummy will teach the older Jack that the mice are food. I did find that cutting small prey up when frozen is much easier (and less squishy ). Not quite so gross. Of course I've never kept rodents as pets either ciao
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Post by jacksmomma on Oct 31, 2010 10:39:11 GMT -5
Well i went to the pet store and bought some frozen mice. I took the boys into the bathroom (at this point they probably hadn't had anything to eat for a good 8 hours) with one mouse and tried to make it appealing by dangling it above their heads and dragging it around. Jack (of course) wanted nothing to do with it. Brady would play with it, carry it around to hide it and then ignore it. Then i cut two frozen mice up into 4 pieces each (if only they didn't have faces and fingers and toes) and the boys wouldn't touch them. I covered a few pieces in salmon oil (Jack's fav!) and he licked the oil off ever so carefully and left mouse completely intact. I held firm and left the mouse-bits on their plate for the entire night and didn't offer anything else for dinner. No one ate that night and I haven't seen Brady refuse anything to eat. I don't want to keep wasting these poor mice but i want the brats to eat whole prey a few days a week too! I have to assume the hair was the offensive part and unfortunately move onto pinkies (i really didn't want to have to look at the poor things)
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Post by jacksmomma on Oct 31, 2010 10:46:40 GMT -5
here's what the boys had to eat this week. I know it's pretty heavy on commercial raw but it's the only way i know for sure that they are getting bone in their diets and it's so convenient. Jack as a treat gets ~ 2-3 mL of salmon oil dripped on his food or licked off my fingers through out the week. Brady doesn't like it.
Sunday PM: NV rabbit Patties (muscle, organ and bone) Monday AM : Turkey thigh with skin, no bone Monday PM: Primal pheasant patties, (muscle, organ and bones) and one chicken wing Tuesday AM: Rabbit bone-in, a few pieces of beef heart Tuesday PM: Rabbit bone-in (it was a really big piece of rabbit), chicken liver Wednesday AM: NV rabbit patties Wednesday PM: chicken giblets Thursday AM: Primal Pheasant Thursday PM: Turkey thigh ( meaty bone and just meat/skin) Friday AM: NV Rabbit Friday PM: Mice = hunger strike Saturday AM: Primal Pheasant Saturday noon: Primal beef and salmon patties Saturday PM: chicken breast and sirloin Sunday AM: Chicken Giblets Sunday PM: Primal Quail
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Post by Heather on Oct 31, 2010 13:33:03 GMT -5
Your guys are switched. Nice variety. It doesn't matter that you're feeding commercial. Jennifer feeds her guys entirely commercial. Ok, the mice....do you have a blender that you really don't care about? Take your frozen mice and through them in the blender . Now take their favourite ground commercial...take a tiny bit of mouse and mix it in with their commercial ground....as they accept it more and more then put more and more mouse in it until they're eating 100% ground mouse. Then you start offering mouse quarters....and then whole mice. This is only one method. We had one lady tie a string to a mouse (dead of course) and had her ferrets chase it all over the place, after about an hour of playing her guys had ripped and torn the mouse so much they ate it. You can try feeding pinkies (no fur). Sometimes it's the fuzzy flavour that gets to them. Those are a couple of methods to try and get them to eat mouse. You don't have to get them to eat prey if you don't want to. You can continue to feed commercial ground and if you want to take it a bit further feed some ground pumpkin or squash to simulate the mouse's fur which will slow their digestive process a bit more, so that they will digest their food more. Just some thoughts....you and you're little ones have done fantastic and are legitimately graduated but we will continue to work with you to get them to prey if you like ciao
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Post by jacksmomma on Nov 9, 2010 17:53:40 GMT -5
I don't have a whole lot to update on Jack and Brady. They are eating almost completely commercial (Primal) raw now. Jack was having alot of tarry looking poops on just muscle meat and organs. I still give them the occasional meal of pure muscle meat and they get gibblets for their teeth, but the commercial raw is just working out great for them. They're both still resisting mice.
I've been working on switching my two cats to raw the last week. One is converted, the other is resisting. She's eating organic canned food (that i sneak raw into) so my house is kibble-free!!! How liberating, lol.
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Post by Heather on Nov 9, 2010 23:33:57 GMT -5
Congratulations on your success of being kibble free. That is so fantastic. That takes perseverance , especially with cats. The dark tarry stools are caused by the blood that from the meat and organ meats, not from your ferrets. You would see this as well if you fed prey. Not to worry, it's just that your ferret's digestive system is so fast that it comes out looking like frank blood. You would get the same thing if you fed cod liver oil too. Keep at them with the mice. Have you tried pinkies? There is no nutritional value, but most look at them as candy. There is also no fur to get used to either. ciao
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Post by jacksmomma on Nov 10, 2010 8:13:44 GMT -5
I haven't been able to make myself buy and feed the pinkies yet. I just keep remembering when my mouse had her babies (i was like 6). Something about killing something in it's infancy makes me feel really... guilty. I'm working on getting over it. Maybe tonight i'll stop and grab a few at the reptile store.
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Post by Heather on Nov 10, 2010 14:33:58 GMT -5
That's ok, you're not the only one and I don't even like mice. I only feed pinkies to my real sickies if they want them. Aremis, in the last few days of his life didn't want to eat soupies (syringe feeding by this point) would only eat pinkies. It wasn't a lot, about 5 or 6 of them in a day but he enjoyed them. For that I can feed the little ones. ciao
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Post by jacksmomma on Nov 11, 2010 8:17:21 GMT -5
Well i sucked it up and bought some pinkies. Jack immediately and without hesitation started licking one and then went directly to "killing" it. Of course it was dead when i gave it to him, but he did a great job of shaking the life out of it. But then that's it. He had a small bite and then made a coughing sound and walked away. Baby B promptly ate up the mice that Jack "killed." I was so excited about Jack's initial enthusiasm, but if he doesn't eat them right away, he wont have a chance with Brady eating everything in sight.
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Post by jacksmomma on Nov 11, 2010 8:42:33 GMT -5
I'm going to place a Rodentpro order because buying pinkies at the petstore is outrageous ($1.40/ pinkie!). The hatchling guail, are they just like candy too or do they have some nutritional value?
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Post by Heather on Nov 11, 2010 14:28:48 GMT -5
Unfortunately, candy Everyone's ferrets love them though If it's baby or new born they've just not had the chance to get any real nutritional value into them yet. You would probably be farther ahead to have fed the ready to hatch eggs than the chicks. ciao
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