Can I get some ferret love? ***NON-VEGAN THREAD***
Hey there!
I joined this forum because I'm delving into raw food, and love forum communities.
And what do I find? A pet section! 8] So here I was looking for ideas and support for myself, and my first post/thread is about my real focus and love.
My Ferrets. ;D So sorry, this post will be long.
Does anybody else have some carpet sharks kicking around?
I got my first ferret, Larka, over a year ago. My second, Oatmeal, last September. They're both the same age, only a few months apart, and both female.
Before I got Larka, I read PAGES on "specialty kibbles", and had a rotation selection of three picked out.
Then I found a raw/whole food ferret forum. My first reaction to feeding a ferret a diet like that after reading up on it was "... That.... makes so much sense!"
So the battle began to switch little lady Larka over to raw food, at 6 months old, after getting her from kijiji.
It was slow going. Soaking kibble in blended chicken water, slowly increasing the amount, etc. I finally got her eating plain ground turkey after a while. Then slowly went to chunked meat and organs, then she slowly got the idea that she could chew bones. Crunch crunch crunch.
After she was set with that, I decided to go into the 'whole food' aspect. I also have a snake, so feeder rodents are in my freezer, and it was a matter of getting Larka to eat them.
Little lady Larka didn't want to tear through fur. But she really liked smelling them.
So, I put freakin' frozen thawed mice in my blender, and whizzed. And gagged. But Larka ate it and it's good for her so I was happy.
Oatmeal was the same age as Larka, and I also found her on kijiji. Her and Larka have completely different personalities, and I had to keep them separated for a long time, having two pens beside each other they lived in, and supervised playtime with each other. I was lagging starting Oatmeal into the raw food, because it took Larka so long, and I wasn't looking forwards to all that raw meat in my poor blender again.
When I let them out together to play, both pens were open, they could go in each other's, all over the house, etc. One day, Oatmeal was noticeably absent. Being a bull-headed, war dancing, dooking ball of PLAY WITH ME, this was odd.
I found her in LARKA'S pen, hidden away in a food hide, just chowing down on a chicken leg!
So little lady Larka took forever to see the light, and Oatmeal the All-Devourer barreled into a hunk of leg and decided "YES, best food EVER, NOMNOMNOM."
She also took to mice like no tomorrow. She'll crack them open, so to speak, eat her favourite parts, and leave Larka the rest. Larka daintily picks at it.
Now I feed them mice and rats of varying sizes, whole chickens that I've hacked up, beef and pork, gizzard packs (chicken hearts for taurine!), organs, necks, etc.
The results? Healthy ferts! Their teeth are clean, their coats are thick and soft and shiny, they smell much less, and their poop was the biggest thing. Ferrets poop A LOT. And it SMELLS. But this is on kibble. Ferrets are straight carnivores, and what they eat they pump out in 4 hours. Kibble diets contained corn, and other plant-based fillers. Ferrets have absolutely NO NEED for that stuff to EVER be in their stomachs. So it passes out, a lot of it, and stinks up their litter pan, because it's food their body doesn't know what to do with. Feeding them raw/whole, they get exactly what they need, and their body process most of it, because it is what their systems are designed to eat. Ergo, less poop, less smell. Less cleaning. More happy.
So, while I'm not eating meat, I always have some in my house, because my ferrets need it. I don't understand vegan diets for cats and dogs. My dog at home with my parents is on a raw omnivore diet containing lots of meat.
I think my body should be eating raw vegan food, and I know my pets should be eating their meat, and all together we're a raw household.
What're you all up to with your pets?
