cool

The Sandy jill I got as a kit last year, has been with two of my males. one sable hob and a silver hob, this moring when I checked her I could her some queeking coming from the nest box. I moved her and looked in, there was a litter of kits, born last night, there is between 10 and 12 of them.
This is her first liter and also mine, any advise will be welcome as its my first litter of ferrets, im well excited, can any one give me clues on colours I might expect.
Also i feed a complete excel ferret food, wat else should i previde over the next few weeks.

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1.2.0 boas
0.1.0 crsted gecko
2.2 ferrets
0.0.1 yellow belled slider
0.0.1 ornate horned frog
1.1.0 emerald mantids
1.0 whippet

you need to give her milk (cat milk) and fresh liver daily, as the babies especially THAT many will be taking alot out of her body to feed them so she needs really good food right now.
It is important to do this as you can lose mom and kits if she gets too weak.

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rep's, fluffie's, bird's, dowgies

as daisey leo said raw liver and raw meat as diet for mum with cat milk every day do not disturb the nest for 2 weeks as mum my eat them also do not do a head count as she will eat the runts etc... possible colours would be same as mum same as dad and whather or not you know each of mum and dads parents you will get hints of them come out too. You may get some black eyed whites if your lucky and cinnamons but just do not disturb the nest cos you may not have anything

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RIP Frodo mummy will always love you
www.freewebs.com/lutonferretrescue

you eed her as much raw meet as she wants as it will make the milk richer for the kits!

Josh

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I am going to advise you to be very careful about liver it contains a lot of vit a which if eaten en masse can actually have the reverse effect that you were looking for. So long as you are feeding her slightly more than you were before and this diet is forfulling you needn't cange anything.

HOWEVER........................as no one has pointed out already i would stress very strongly that you leave her and the kits alone, that they live by themselves. If the males are any where near her and the babies they pose a serious fatal danger to the kitts.

If it very important that the kits are kept at the right temp, kits can die in seconds if they get cold they sweat alot and in turn if they get hot this can also cause issues. So long as the nest is safe secure and there is nothing there that they can tangle in then they will be fine. I lost one in the nest i offered my jill a foam cat pyramid and there were loose threads it died in the first week.

Marina

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Hold on to your hopes and dreams
Hold on to who you are
Give in
Take the journey.

Thanks all

I have not touched any of the kits, the female is seperate and seems to be doing a good job. I have bought her some, stake , liver and kidneys, I have read the james mckay ferrets breeding, he says that when the kits are 2 weeks old, offer the ferret food soffend as the kits will start eating, he recomeds cooking some hi fat mince and using the water off it to soffen the food.

thanks again

Tom

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1.2.0 boas
0.1.0 crsted gecko
2.2 ferrets
0.0.1 yellow belled slider
0.0.1 ornate horned frog
1.1.0 emerald mantids
1.0 whippet

dried ferret kibble soaked in warm cat milk works well, but I find offering kits meat at a young age is the best way to wean them and the most natural for them. They suck all the goodness from the meat before they even have teeth to eat! If you feed the mum meat on the bone she will often drag it into the nest at just a couple of weeks of age for them to start eating.

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1.1 hermanns tortoise Hermann and Harriet
2.2 bernese mountain dogs Yogi, Midge, Melody and Harmony
0.1 angora ferret Aggie
3.1 albino ferrets Rupert, Bean, Smurf and Madison
1.0 chocolate polecat ferret Bisto
3.2 polecat ferrets Fonzie, Blaze, Guinness, Venus and Celeste
1.0 silver ferret Razzle
1.1 sandy ferrets Rodney and Gemini

All i ever feed my nursing Jills is dry ferret food (James Wellbeloved ferret complete) and cat milk, I would never put raw meat in my ferrets cage if she had young just in case she hid some and it went off, as you cant really disturb her nest looking for hidden food while she has very young kits, one of my Jills has 12 kits at the moment and they all are very healthy strong kits... and doing well and my Jill has loads of condition on her and plenty milk to feed her kits. Some of these kit will grow up and go on and win ferret classes at the shows i attend like many show winners that i have bred and raised before on the same diet.

i can honestly say i have not had issue with any of my girls about me checking the nest...

i take the female out, place her in a large black bin, rub my hands in her urine soaked litter, do what i need to in and around the nest, place some fresh feed in and replace the female.. so far, not one has been worried about it..

i have 4 litters at the moment, with 3 girls left to go!

N

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None of my Jills mind either if i check their nest..and mine trust me enough to check their kits without rubbing my hands in their wet litter and are in the cage at the same time as i check them over, but not all Jills will tolerate this and some will even kill their ofspring if to much interference happens within the nest. I am the only one that handle my Ferrets and have bred all my breeding Jills and brought them up from kits...hence the trust they have with me.