From:
WOLFYSLUV@aol.com
Date: 2004-06-25 12:19:14 UTC
Subject: RE: Ferret will only eat the dogs food and shes loosing weight
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
Message-ID: <2b.5ab94789.2e0d7242@aol.com>
sukiec@optonline.net
>
Try grinding the dog food and coating the good food with that powder as a
possible solution which I hope succeeds for you.
-- dang that's a good idea! I'll remember that in case I ever run into a
situation like this.
As far as table food for treats, I'd imagine that any meat would be
great. Your chicken, lamb, whatever. Stay away from fruits and vegies. They just
take up room in the tummy and aren't absorbed at all, which could add to
weight loss. Also some can put your ferret at risk for blockage. If you look at
www.ferretstore.com, or even in some of your petstores there are now ferret
treats out there that have a good percentage of protein (check the ingredients,
some have like 29% protein and up). I don't know of a ferret that doens't go
nuts over the "Whisker Lickins" at petstores. You might try the chicken flavor
or something. I think those have a high protein content.
But you really don't want to give treats though if there is weight loss I
don't think. You want your ferret to get the highest protein and calorie
intake as possible each time it eats. Does your ferret like Ferretone? If
Sukies idea does not work, you could also dribble ferretone on the ferret food and
see how that goes (just don't let the food sit for more than a day if you do
that, I would think). Until you have this solved, you know what really puts
weight on my ferrets super fast? A couple times a day, I get two tablespoons of
heavy whipping cream, mixed with some baby chicken food and a drop of
ferretvite (which has lots of calories). That whipping cream alone really helps put
the weight one. I warm that up (the warmth stimulates them), and give that to
them two ore more times a day. At the same time, I work on the food problem.
Wolfy
ps it's funny though, as unhealthy as it was, when I was a little girl I had
no weight loss problems with my ferrets just eating regular cat food. But then
again they ate lots of table scraps (meat) as well. Hmm.
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