At 2:06 AM -0400 8/5/03, Kathy Gallagher wrote:
>My personal ferrets eat almost anything.  The rescues that have come
>in over the last 4 yrs may not.  How can I get adult ferrets to start
>eating chicken gravy short of force feeding them.
 
I currently have three rescue girls.  One of them -- Bliztie -- will NOT
eat anything new unless it is forced on her first.  Even Ferretone and
Ferretvite (!) required a scruffing and a fingertip's smear in/on her
mouth the first couple times.  But after that, she'll eat whatever treat
has been "forced" upon her enthusiastically.  (She also has a bad leg,
bad eyesight, and seems a bit slow on the uptake in general.  And she's
my only albino.  A real misfit, little Blitzie.  But WHAT a sweetie she
is! ;-)
 
I made my first batch of chicken gravy the other night (there is
something very satisfying about meat-cleavering the heck out of
some chicken bones... hehe), and since my other two girls have
shown a liking for tuna fish in the past, I added a can of drained
tuna to the mix.  I also sprinkle Nupro powder over their regular
kibble-and-freeze-dried-meat dry food mix, so I added a few generous
scoops of that to the gravy.  That (I figured) would add some familiar
flavors to it.
 
The other two girls went for the gravy like there was no tomorrow, no
coaxing, no mixing, no nothing.  Blitzie, true to form, ignored the gravy
COMPLETELY until I scruffed her and stuffed a couple fingertip-fulls into
her mouth.  Then she dove in with her usual, "OH!  I didn't know it was
FOOD" gusto.
 
Moral of the story (I guess): If your kids won't go for the gravy right
off, try mixing the gravy with a familiar food additive, or mixing a
favorite food in it first.  Maybe dip a favorite treat "bit" in the gravy
and hand feed it?  Or mix the gravy in with their regular kibble (serve
it like -- you guessed it -- gravy!  hehe).
 
But if those methods don't convince the rescue kids that it's a good
thing, force-feeding isn't necessarily horrible, so don't feel guilty!
Sometimes a smear on the nose will do the trick for Blitzie (it worked
with the Ferretone), but sometimes she just WON'T try a new food until
it's been forced in her mouth.
 
--
:: Teresa ::
"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over,
and expecting a different result."
        -- Albert Einstein
[Posted in FML issue 4231]