From:
Stacey Michele
Date: 2003-05-14 00:39:32 UTC
Subject: squeeky toys and turkey baby food diets
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
Message-Id: <4.2.2.20030513172511.00ca2790@65.197.178.166 >
Hi Everybody - I'm pretty new here, as far as posting goes - so feel free
to ignore my two cents if you'd like! =)
(just background since I'm introducing myself ! We've had many
ferrets (seven at present) for nearly 10 years and can't remember what it
felt like to not have ferrets at home - we imagine we must not have had
nearly as much joy, though. We've also taken in a few foster ferrets or
older, ill ferrets as well, so we've seen a lot of meds and alternate diets
here and there...)
Our 8 1/2 year old (ironically, her name is Squeekers =) has been eating
chicken baby food (has just chicken and chicken broth) with a mix of her
own ferret food softened in water and then mixed together - for about 6
months now and is doing quite well. It started with some mild hypoglycemic
behaviors and a "working on having an abcess" tooth. We believe the
hypoglycemic behaviors may have come from her not eating from the tooth
pain- we'll never know for sure, but she doesn't seem to have the symptoms
now. After some antibiotics, her tooth got better, but by then, she had
realized that having her food softened, mixed with baby food and Barely
warmed in the microwave was FAR superior to her ferret food alone, and
refuses to eat otherwise now. She's doing really well, still, so I humor
her and still feed her twice a day that way. Also, once a day, she gets a
small spot (half of a dime size) of Nutrical on top of her mixture. I
notice she *will* eat her regular food if she feels like she's too hungry
to wait for the good stuff, which cracks me up.
I'm getting off course, here (sorry!). The question I came up with after
reading your posts was this - Is there a nutritional difference between
turkey baby food and chicken baby food? I noticed several people had
mentioned turkey, and I wondered if I'm missing something important?
A comment on the Squeeky toy thread : I have ferrets that will come to
squeeky toys, but we refrain, because one of our seven *hates* the
squeeking. Well, we think she does, anyway. She will come running, but
she doesn't come running like when she's being called by name - she comes
like she thinks something is wrong (we wonder if she thinks one of her pals
is crying out?), so humans aren't allowed to squeek the toys at our
house. If someone steps on the edge of a squeeky toy by mistake when she's
in her cage, she will wake up from a dead sleep and frantically try to get
out of her cage to come running. We take the squeekers out now, when
possible. Just another story!
Everyone take care - this is a great group!
Stacey and the Bubbies
-The road to enlightenment is long and difficult -
-bring ferrets and a good book!
http://www.BubbieLove.com