When I went through this with a very malnourished and abused ferret, I found that in general, depending on how big the ferret is, shoot for at least 90 grams of food a day, but I made sure ferrets that were eating a little bit on their own get at least 60 a day from me. However, that includes supplements. If he is truly not eating anything on his own, divide up the 100 grams of food (or whatever number you decided on, ask your vet) into the most feedings you can manage. If you are home all the time, every 2 to 3 hours is good. This also helps by keeping the tummy full more often. The problem with only 3 feedings a day is that you have to feed larger quantities, which can be more stessful on a fuzzy but you have to do what you have to do! When you feed Sprout, warm up the baby food and put it on your finger, and let him lick it (or his duck soup). If he doesn't like it, take some in a syringe and give him 1ml of it, and let him run around. He'll wipe his mouth most likely. But baby food is quickly accustomed to, and after half an hour, try again. See if he gets used to eating it. Play around with consistency - half baby food, half water, at first if he doesn't like it. Always add some water to the warmed up baby food - sick ferrets can eat it much easier. If he won't eat the food still, play around with the temperature - most like it pretty warm and I have seen some that won't touch it unless it's borderline hot. If he really, really will not swallow ANYTHING (gritting teeth, letting food inserted in mouth drip out) and continues this - then you have to get a feeding tube. I have only had to do this once with a ferret. The vet can give you a catheter to use for it, and they can show you how far to insert the catheter (usually three or four inches, but it depends on the size of your fuzzy). The catheter is made of a material that will naturally go down without lubrication. All you would do is fill up the large syringe with baby food or soup (nothing with grit) and attach the feeding tube. Scruff the fuzzy and insert the tube. Have a 1ml syringe next to you in case he tries to chew at the tube (you can put the syringe in to prevent that). Most ferrets get very used to the tube and it takes 15 seconds to 30 seconds to fill up the ferret's tummy this way. Make sure you go over everything with your vet, as you need to get the tube far enough down that you are doing it right. The other benefit of tube feeding is that it makes ferrets want to eat for you much much faster ;) As far as water, I only "force" (getting a ferret to drink from a dropper) liquids if they're dehydrated already, and even then I try to limit this to whatever they want to comfortably drink. If a ferret is constantly dehydrated, of course SQ fluids is the way to go - it sounds like you're not having to worry about this. My rule of thumb - SQ as much as can be comfortably injected under the scruff, wait for this to go down, and if needed again, repeat. Laryssa [Posted in FML 6632]