I started making chicken gravy in october, since I want my guys to have
a diet lower in carbs, and also my roommate's ferret Sabre on chemo has
only been eating chicken baby food, which couldn't be that great for him.
have already made several batches of gravy, so maybe there isn't so much
point to these questions... but how much chicken and how much water do
people generally use?  we have been buying chicken that are either 1.5 kg
(3lbs) or 2.5 kg(5lbs), and adding about a cup of water per 3 lbs of
chicken.  I don't add kibble and only add extra fat to the diet for
Sabre.  I guess our gravy is actually a bit funny, since Sabre has to be
syringe fed so his gravy needs to be strained, and the little bits of
strained bones and stuff goes into the unstrained batch.
 
haven't had that much trouble making the gravy... the first batch we took
a hammer to the bones, and after blending there are some spinters, so
later we got a small hand grinder to put the bones through.  had trouble
with the grinder until I realize we didn't put it together properly :p.
it takes about 3 hours for a 3lb chicken, the bit I like least was taking
the chicken apart, the rest I don't mind, and I have to confess... I
really like the taste of the chicken gravy!!  have to remind myself how
much work it is to make so I don't steal from the ferrets.
 
my roommate has also coined a term for feeding Sabre that is rather
catchy - scruff and stuff.  most of the time he'll eat off the syringe,
we only need to scruff and stuff when he has a small appetite.
 
as for rice/bean boxes... to Melissa who complained about her cats peeing
in the packing peanuts... well, imagine this... I had a small translucent
clothes bin I was using as a rice box for the ferrets, and they
absolutely love it, except it was only a foot high, so they kept hitting
their heads on it... plus I want to be able to watch the fun, so I built
a 2.5 x 3 x 2.5 feet wood box with 2 plexi glass sides, varnished well,
for them to play with.  well, you need about 80 lbs of rice to fill that
sucker... and initially I didn't have a lid... and my roommate has 5
cats... the first time I saw it happening and I was able to just toss out
the peed on rice, and I added a lid with a square hole for a tube so the
ferrets can get in and out... I thought I was safe, but it turns out one
of the cats could get in through the space between the tube and the lid,
and then I noticed the ferrets weren't using the box so much after a bit.
thank god I varnish all the wood stuff I make for the ferrets.  I didn't
want to just toss the rice, so I tried washing it... washing 80lbs was
not fun... eventually I had a moth problem with the rice and toss it when
I moved last may.  now I have about 10 lbs?  of organic black soil in the
box, and I'll probably add some play sand at some point, since it isn't
deep enough.  don't have recent pictures, but you can view the ferrets
having fun in my rice boxes in my ferret movies (the long one).  and
building a large box with plexiglass sides is worth it.
 
another note about the ferret videos... one of the vets interns at Guelph
is from Israel, and he went back for xmas and gave a talk on ferrets
there.  I gave him a copy of my videos and he used the short one for the
introduction to his talk!  he said it was very welll received :).
 
// *********************************
// Selina, Sprite, Sand & Bear
// in spirit - Birch, Dief & Storm
// http://www.cgl.uwaterloo.ca/~ssiu
[Posted in FML issue 4021]