Hare Today?

[Hails]

I've heard good things from them and the products seem to be worth the price. For those of you who use it, what do you order? I'm leaning towards the ground meats with bones and organs instead of the whole prey, just for convenience's sake.

My shopping cart right now...

Ground Whole Carcass Mouse, 2 lb
Ground Beef/Organs/Tripe and Bone, 2 lb
10 lb ground meat/bone/organ assorted sampler which consists of
-1 lb ground chicken/bone/organ
-1 lb ground pheasant/bone/organ
-1 lb ground rabbit/bone/organ
-1 lb whole carcass ground rabbit
-1 lb ground turkey/bone/organs
-1 lb ground duck/bone/organs
-1 lb ground quail/bones/organs
-1 lb whole carcass ground quail
-1 lb ground white fish/bones
-1 lb ground salmon/bones
Chicken Hearts, 2 lbs
Chicken Necks, 2 lbs

I've got three ferrets so how long do you think it'd take for them to eat it all? Assuming they like all these new meats like the fish and quail.

[jacksmomma]

The duck hearts are a HUGE hit with my two boys. They both really love them.

[sunnyberra]

I order the duck products (almost all except the whole duck); ground bone in turkey/hearts/liver/thigh; chicken necks; ground bone in pheasant; whole dressed quail; ALL ages of their whole prey quail; their fish; bone-in ground rabbit/rabbit chunks/pieces/organs; ground beef organs; ground beef; pork trim (my guys LOVE this. even my cats do); and probably more stuff I can't remember now.

I have found that my guys detest the whole carcass ground quail. They also LOVE the ground bone in turkey, but hate the coarse ground turkey (where they enjoy the coarse ground duck/pheasant).

As you can see, I use hare-today almost exclusively (our store's meat was chock full of additives and sodium broth and colors, except for gizzards and cgh's which are the one things I prefer from the grocery store and not from hare-today, because hare-today's cghs have really thick skin and Pixie hates a ton of fat/skin with her cghs. It makes her IBD flare).

When I first started I used the sampler, too, to give me an idea of what they liked, now I just buy from the categories. Now, I've done the same for the cats (two are being introduced to raw), but their diet is considerably different (more chicken, since they don't suffer from IBD, like Pixie) and more boneless, but still. I get a *ton* of meat delivered, it's insane.

[Kerit]

I also went for the sampler packs first, just to get an idea of what my crew likes. (However, I'm mostly feeding the ground stuff to my two cats and dog, as the ferrets insist on being spoon-fed anything mushy and actually prefer chunks )

I have to say, frozen whole prey is WAY more convenient for us than ground raw. Ground has to be thawed (do it in a bowl/container, as it will leak blood), then repackaged into single portions (quite messy) and labeled, then thawed again and scooped into a dish for dinner. A whole mouse or chick, however, gets tossed straight into the cage from the freezer, and my boys devour it entirely -- no bowl, no leftovers. I order prey from RodentPro since I haven't found anything local.

But, whole prey is expensive! And it's easier to provide more variety with the ground raw. You'll have to see what your group likes, as it seems to be different for everybody. Like Sunnyberra, not one of my carnivores appreciated whole carcass stuff. I tried rabbit and salmon -- they hated the fur and scales. They love rabbit and fish meat/organs otherwise.

As for how long that will last for you, it's hard to say. I would guess I get about eight, maybe ten smallish ferret meals out of a pound. One snack-sized baggie, for me, feeds two cats and a small dog OR two 2lb ferrets for one meal (isn't that nuts?).

[horse656]

depends on how much your crew eats for up to how long it lasts.
there are 16 ounces in a pound. so you have roughly 288 ounces there.
i give my girls(i also only have two ferrets) right now three ounces each meal. so for you I'm going to assume about 4-5 ounces.
so 288/4.5 = 64 meal
64/2= 32 days. if you feed in the morning and night.
it also depends if they don't like it, so then your not getting them to eat that meal.
haha sorry if that's confusing. my nerd is coming out

[mjohn143]

I was curious ab hare today also and how you can get the meat organs and bone all ground together. I was wondering though, how do you know you aren't feeding to much organ?

[sunnyberra]

It is difficult, since they don't give percentages with the ground meats. I buy a bit of extra organ and make up "enhanced" meals (1/2 tsp of organ per ferret). I started feeding these 1x/week, but I've since moved to once a month/bit more than that, based on their poos. Less frequently and their poos are nice and normal, every week/every two weeks and their poos are a bit mucky.

Plus, I don't feed strictly ground bone in meats. They have RMBs duing the week (necks, cghs, rabbit chunks and pieces, etc) and meat meals. So out of the 8 or 9 bone in meals I feed during the week, 3 or 4 are ground and the rest are RMBs. Probably if you feed more ground bone in meals that had organ, the percentage of what organ you would add would be different *or* you would just skip it.