RECIPE

This is based on Bob Church's Chicken Gravy.

2 Fryer Chickens (with giblets)

1 Good size rabbit (with giblets)

1 Pint or so of mixture of livers, gizzards, and hearts

Double handful, about half pound of fat trimmings (beef or pork) OR can use a small canister of lard. (I'm starting to prefer the lard - it doesn't go bad.)

6-7 eggs

about 3 cups water

2-3 Tbsp Ferretone

2-3 Tbsp Light Olive Oil

2 - 3 tubes Nutrical

12 Tbsp Honey (approximate)

Optional for those ferrets starting out:  3 cups high quality kibble (crush or blend and add to pot with meat.)

Rabbit is a natural prey animal for polecats in Europe, so I add one whole rabbit to every batch. My ferrets prefer the batches with rabbit and don't like the batches without. I have a ferret that will run off with whole chunks of raw rabbit and happily eat it!

You may have seen the recipe with roasters, but I use fryers, not roasters. More bone to meat in the ratio, a little closer to the proportions of "natural prey". Humans have bred chickens to have more meat, especially more white meat, than any "wild" chicken would have, so I prefer to keep the proportions closer to the natural animal.

I also purchase all the products at an Amish market, but any natural food store or organic produce would work. Try to avoid buying bright yellow chickens pumped full of steroids and hormones and antiobiotics and other chemicals!  The goal of the diet is to return the ferret to a more natural state of eating.

The original version calls for adding bran or other fiber, but I do not add it and no longer add kibble. The only reason for the kibble in the first place is to have a familiar smell to entice the ferret into eating it. Once they start eating it, you can reduce/eliminate the kibble. (I checked with Bob!) As for the Metamucil or bran, it is supposed to replace the contents of the prey's stomach, which would likely be vegetative matter, so it acts as the fiber to help move the food along the gastrointestinal tract. Since my ferrets still eat kibble, which is lots of fiber, I haven't felt it was necessary to add fiber to the chicken gravy.

I also throw in the whole egg rather than just the eggshells. Again, weasels will eat whole eggs when they get the chance, so it is just adding back a natural food.

I don't overcook. I don't cook before the chopping/grinding and I limit the cooking time afterward. I only do it until the meat turns color and hardens and the bones are slightly cooked. I've found it helps to keep stirring. Even a big double batch rarely cooks more than 15 minutes or so. Again, with the organic chickens, I don't worry as much about pesticides, worms, parasites or any other diseases. They are not living in a tiny cage eating each other's feces, so there is less contamination, so I don't feel it has to be cooked to death as I would for humans. Plus, animal digestive tracts are designed to eat raw prey, not cooked, so once again my purpose is to keep the food as close as possible to natural. Bones that are fully cooked also tend to splinter more easily. Less cooked, they do not splinter and can be eaten. I've checked with a food scientist, and most of the beasties that cause problems are killed by the freezing process.

Now for the difficult directions.

Buy yourself a really, really good Chinese cleaver.  Not a flimsy one, not steel, no plastic handles. Get a big, heavy, wooden handled iron cleaver. And a big heavy cutting board. I actually have two boards - one for the humans and human food, and one that is only ever used for the chicken cutting and is disinfected with bleach after every use. And get a really, really good pair of kitchen scissors. You will bless the day you made the investment, believe me!

How much you chop will depend on your ferrets. At this point, I just cut the meat off the bones with the scissors, put it in the food processor briefly, then toss it in a big pot. The bones I chop up with the cleaver, which does a great job of cutting them up. But, I'm not cutting them up really tiny, I'm leaving chunks. The eggs get processed until the shells are very tiny pieces, and the fat trimmings also get processed.  If I'm using the lard I just put it in the pot, another reason I like it better. The extra gizzards I also process briefly, just enough to break down all the big pieces.

For ferrets that haven't tried it, you may want to process more to make it mushier. Try it and see.

Now put all the meat and meat ingredients in a pot with the water and start cooking. It is hard to tell exactly when it is done - I leave it kind of pink as it continues to cook in the pot and in the containers for a bit. Once it gets done, take it off the heat and add all the other ingredients. Stir it up, put it in containers, freeze. You are done! 

To serve, let one container thaw, put some in a dish, heat lightly maybe with some extra water to make juice, and let your ferrets try it. If they won't eat it don't despair. Try more mincing or chopping, add more juice, stick their paws or nose in it, and just keep trying.

My Piglet thought I was trying to kill her when I gave her gravy. After six months of ignoring it, she finally started to eat it and now is a fan. They all do it eventually. HCF ferrets are raised on it. This years litter wanted no part of the super chopped stuff - they went straight for the bones!

Good luck with it and don't hesitate to ask questions! I highly recommend this - I've seen it really help with health issues.