I am being peppered (or should I say splattered) with chicken gravy
questions, many of which are about the same.  I've saved them up, and
here are a few responses:
 
1. I use a $60 blender I bought at K-mart.  Since I can't cook unless over
an open flame (genetics or testosterone?), I can't use the correct terms.
but essentially I start with a little water, add bone, and work up to the
higher speeds.  Sometimes I will fish a tough chunk out and whack it with a
wood mallet to bust the bone.  My bone chips wind up about 1/2 cm2.
 
2. The tiny bone fragments are harmless.  Prove it yourself by putting
some of the mixture in your palm and rubbing it hard into your hand.  They
are necessary because they a) supply calcium and phosphates in the correct
ratio, and 2) they provide a "scrubbing" action to the intestines in the
form of an "insoluble fiber." If you think they are too big, whack 'em with
a hammer to make them smaller, but don't dump them.
 
3. You don't have to use chicken.  Use beef or duck or turkey or whatever
you have, but you might have trouble getting cow bones to grind up in your
blender ;-).  I think chicken is much easier to get olfactory-imprinted
ferrets to eat because a lot of kibble is poultry based, but use whatever
you want *IF* the ferret has already shown that it will eat the meat.
Otherwise, you could be wasting your time.  Several people asked if
rabbit, squirrel or venison could be used.  Yes, but keep in mind they
are generally lean meats and need more fat.
 
4. If your ferret is obese, cut the included fat by 25%.  If your ferret is
ill, discuss the diet with your vet first.  The only objection to the diet
(other than a prejudice toward bone chips) could be in the carbos, which
could be reduced or removed if necessary; the fat to bone to meat
proportions should be basically left alone.
 
5. You can probably buy trimmed fat from a butcher if you are a vegetarian
and can't save it on your own.  If you don't want to admit the fat is for
your ferret, tell them you are making sausage and want to impress your
mother-in-law.  Animal lard is not a good subsitute because it lacks the
cellular components and has been heated and homogenized.  Makes it good (?)
for cooking I guess, but not a subsitute for fat.  I now use poutry shears
to cut fat into tiny chunks before blending.
 
6. There is no way I can tell you the exact fat to protein ratio because it
depends on the fat included in the meat and marrow, the quality of fat
added to the mixture, and the exact amounts tossed in the blender.  I
strive to have a 40% fat to 10% bone to 50% protein ratio.  This seems high
compared to kibble labels, but remember this is a natural product--not a
rendered one--so some of what we call "fat" is not pure, but has proteins
as connective and other tissues included.
 
7. Yes it is messy, yes it does take work, yes you need to get a good
quality blender.  It's worth it.  Stop whining.
 
8. There is nothing wrong in boiling the meat first.  You will lose some
nutrients, but can recover a lot of them by including the water in the
mixture.  Try to use as little water as possible and give the rest as a
drink.  They will love it.
 
9. I cut the chicken with a huge ACME cleaver, like seen in Bugs Bunny
cartoons.  Actually, I use a pair of poultry shears and cut everything but
the nastiest bones.  These can be broken with a hammer into small pieces
before they ever hit the blender.
 
10. I formulated this to be as perfect as a single food could be, then
sort of bumped up the energy because I give it to low weight and ill
ferts.  I made sure there was a lot of undigestable wastes to help scrub
the intestines clean, the natural fats give the ferret a good dose of
fat-soluble vitamins, and the meat and bone supplies the trace elements.
Unless your ferret has a metabolic disorder, eating this stuff will supply
virtually every nutrient they need *IN EXCESS* of daily metabolic needs.
In other words, unlike kibble which supplies nutrients at the minimalist
level, this food has as much stuffed into a small space as possible, which
is why people report a little goes a long way.  It does.
 
11. The reason to add brewer's yeast is really for the iron.  This stuff
has lots of myoglobin from the meat, and hemoglobin from the bone marrow.
You will find the ferret's poopies will get darker with this food; that's
excess iron saying goodbye.  You don't need the brewer's yeast.  You can
add it, but it will mostly pass on through.
 
12. You can dump the linatone/ferretone and add raw liver.  Beef or chicken
livers are very good.  Besides iron, many fat-soluble vitamins are stored
in the liver.  An ounce or two is enough.
 
13. I use a whole chicken because it already comes in a "package" with the
proper ratio of meat to bone.  That way, I don't have to do math.
 
14. Adding bone meal instead of bone has one potiential serious problem
and one real drawback.  Bones tend to save bad metals inside them and a
large percentage of animal bones are contaminated with lead and selinium,
so make sure to use bone meal intended for human consumption.  The drawback
is bone meal lacks marrow, which is why the bone is included in the first
place.  For the marrow, remember?
 
15. There are several web pages with the gravy recipe, as well as the FML
archives.  Or you can ask me, but I get a lot of mail and may not have time
to respond to your request in a timely fashion.
 
Any more questions?
 
Bob C and 19 Mo' Funky Ferts
[Posted in FML issue 2625]