my ferret is not eating ... properly should we say?

Question
QUESTION: well i just got my new baby ferret "saffy" ! i got her a week ago today loll and i lover her so much :d i had her at 6 weeks and now she is seven.. i have been feeding her on ox liver and also kidneys in which he loves!!! well should we say loved? my mum chucked them away because they were stinking out our fridge .. now al i have is dry biscuits ( 3 different types ) to feed her on until Wednesday ..( i pay for everything for her ) and i gave her a combination of 3 types of food this morning and she didn't eat a thing .. she hovered over it but then walked away! ... so what do you suggest i do to sort this problem out .. and also ! when she bites .. she is beginning to hurt, I've tried that tap on the nose trick and she stopped for about a day or 2 but everytime i get her out again its like i have to teach her all over again! any other suggestions :) talking of tricks hah i taught her how to roll over yesterday :P adorable .. i went to video it but she ran of loll ( camera shy ) !! anyway thanks

Lauren

x

ANSWER: Hi Lauren,

Do you give your little girl kibble? Like Totally Ferret, or 8-in-1 Ultimate, or anything like that? I'm sorry, but I'm not really sure what you mean by dried biscuits. If you mean a kibbled food, then maybe your little girl isn't responding to it because she doesn't recognize it as food. Ferrets imprint on their food through their olfactory nerves, which means they learn the certain smell of their food and anything else doesn't smell like food to them. If you don't give her kibble on a regular basis, then that might be why she didn't eat it now. To avoid it in the future, you could try giving her kibble every once in a while when you give her the ox liver and kidneys. I mean, give her a little bowl of it daily with the ox liver and kidneys, just in case you ever run out of it and need her to eat kibble. To get her to eat it, you can just put the ox liver and kidney in the bowl of kibble and make sure the juices get on the kibble so she'll recognize the smell. Does your little girl like Ferretone? That could be a good trick with the kibble in the meantime until Wednesday. You could try drizzling Ferretone on the kibble and that might get her to eat it.

As for the nipping - baby ferrets tend to do that. You see, when they play with other baby ferrets, they bite each other and their skin is so tough that they don't feel it when they get bitten. Naturally, they think that our skin is as tough as theirs so they might be a little too rough when they are playing. Tapping her on the nose isn't a good idea because it might lead to her associating you with fear and aggression and she might bite you more because she is scared of you. The best way to go about it is to gently grab her by the scruff of the neck and say in a firm voice, "no". Then, snuggle her up to your chest and pet her and talk to her for about a minute, then let her down. I call this the scruff and snuggle. It works because it socializes the ferret and it lets the ferret know that you are not to be feared, you are to be loved. If she bites a second time, repeat the scruff and snuggle. If she does it a third time, repeat the scruff and snuggle, and then put her in her cage for at least a ten minute time out. You could also try putting her in a carrier or some other type of enclosure. Her cage is okay to use for a time out but she might start associating her home with being bad, so that is just something to think about.

That is so cute that she rolls over! That would be an adorable video. I hope you get it on tape sometime.

If there is anything else I can help you with, please don't hesitate to ask.

Sincerely,
Emilee Andrews

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: lol just one more thing pet! erm ... the problem i i only have dry KIBBLE lol not biscuits! .. cat kibble though haha /./. do i have to feed her on wet meat if i dont have to .. can i just feed her on a highly nutritional cat kibble ? and also at the minuite i can not go hopping until saturday because im working through the week this week till 5pm every night and shops close at 6 so its hard? and like i said my mum thrown away the meat! because it was stinking out the fridge :( so what do you suggest now? :D

ANSWER: Hi Lauren,

This chart is my favorite to give out to new ferret parents because it ranks all the foods that ferret parents normally give to their kids.

http://www.mdferretpaws.org/care/food_treats.html

Look for the brand of food you are looking to feed your ferret and see where it ranks on the chart. Here are a few good rules of thumb, though:

1) You should be looking for a food with at least 30% protein, 20% fat and no more than 3% fiber.

2) The next thing you should be watching out for is: when you are looking at the ingredient panel on the bag, corn, wheat or soy products should not be in the first three (let's say 5, just to be safe) ingredients. Kibble companies like to use these products as fillers and binders for the kibble and ferrets just can't digest these products. They are obligate carnivores which means they are only able to digest meat and constant exposure to corn and other similar products could cause a gastrointestinal blockage. An intestinal blockage, if not caught in time, requires a surgery for the ferret and it could lead to a painful end for your fuzzy if not treated in time.

If that cat kibble you are feeding her ranks well on the chart or it meets those requirements, then it is probably okay for her to eat. It is still a GREAT idea to keep feeding hearts and kidneys, although that doesn't really *need* to be her main diet, meats are better for them than kibble. Many people advocate the natural diet for a ferret so I would keep it up with the hearts and the kidneys, at least once every couple days. Since she already eats that, it is a really great supplement to her kibble diet. Kibble is hard on the teeth so giving her a heart or a kidney would be easier on her teeth, not to mention the HUGE nutrients ox hearts and kidneys have. So, to answer your question, you can feed her dry kibble but I HIGHlY recommend keeping it up with the hearts and kidneys because they really are so good for your little girl. You could give it as a treat once a day or something like that. I just can't stress enough: keep giving them to her!!

I hope I helped and if there is anything else I can do, please let me know.


Sincerely,
Emilee Andrews



---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: sorry for all the questions :s il be feeding on this food shown in the http.. she loves it :p .. lol high in her daily needs lol also i tried that scruff thing .. it starts to work :D and i got her to rollover again

do you think these are appropriate?

you may wanna look em up after you look at the picture ( i didnt buy them because of the look on the box )

http://i30.tinypic.com/1hx91t.jpg

http://i27.tinypic.com/15f4tts.jpg

http://i31.tinypic.com/2yxk6tj.jpg

i do not have much of the james welbeloved left so it will just be the first two ( brekkies ) boxes lol. i have about 6 of those in total .. p.s do they like gravy mixed in with foods? chicken flavour? !!!!

Answer
Hi Lauren,

Don't worry. All the questions don't bother me! That is what I'm here for!

I took a look at those Brekkies foods and I'm sorry to say that I wouldn't recommend feeding those to a ferret at all. The first ingredient is cereals, not meat, which puts a major red flag up for me. Ferrets really need to eat food that has meat listed as AT LEAST the first ingredient. Also, there is only 11% fat in that food, which is far too low for ferret consumption. Another reason why it isn't great food is that the second box I looked at was mainly comprised of fish, which is great for cats, but ferrets have little to do with fish meat. Are high quality ferret foods such as 8-in-1 Ultimate and Totally Ferret unavailable to you? If they are unavailable, you should really look into getting some other type of high quality food. That James Wellbeloved looks *okay* except I don't even see a fat precentage breakdown.

I think that you should do a little research and see if you can get your hands on some Totally Ferret, or some 8-in-1 Ultimate Ferret Diet. They are high quality foods and decently priced. Any of those foods that rank high on that chart I gave you would probably be good too. Like I said, though, those Brekkies cat foods are most definitely not good for your ferret to eat.


Chicken gravy is okay for them once in a while as long as it is made from purely chicken and not a bunch of other wheat or grain additives.

I hope this information helped and if you have another question, you know where to find me!

Sincerely,
Emilee Andrews


------EDIT------

You should be feeding a food with at least 36% protein, not 30% protein. I'm not really sure where my head was when I wrote that, and I do apologize. 36% is the minimum protein requirement for a ferret's diet!