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I was giving Miss Kitty her cookies. They LOVE the organic animal crackers I get from Costco! They come in a big square plastic jug and are low in sugar so they aren't TOO horrible for the coonies! I do still try to limit them, but I think if the coonies had their way, they'd have nothing but cookies for dinner! LOL!!
Be sure to try and limit the grapes as grapes are high in natural sugar content. I know... hard to do when the coonies look up at you with those beedy little black eyes just BEGGING for more! You might want to try some watermellon or cantelop chunks too... some coonies like those.
I think overall, they'll stop eating when they're full. The sugar and fat content is mainly what I try to monitor, but with the dog food I put a bunch out and what they don't eat at the time, they'll come back for later. (unless another coonie gets there first!) Right now I'm mixing dog kibble and cat kibble to give to them. I don't know if it's a craving that new mommas have or what, but they were getting insistant on eating the feral cats' food and passing by the dog food. Now I'm mixing the two and they seem to be happier...plus the cat kibble is smaller and easier for the little ones to eat.
The babies will keep nursing for a while.... I'll look up the exact info and post it for you. You probably still see boobs on mom, and even when the little ones start crunching on kibble, they're still nursing at home.
Yep... I know what you mean about the mom & kits disappearing for 3 days. This has happened here every year. My theory is that mom is taking a field trip with the kits to show them places to avoid, how to find grubs and other edible goodies, and teach them all things coon. None of mine came around yesterday, so I think it's field trip time here again. Of course just when you're in a panic and have convinced yourself that something horrible has happened, they show up again with little hands and faces pressed up against the sliding door! LOL!! By the way.... I've given up long ago with trying to have "hand print free" glass doors. Besides... I think the little prints are adorable!
From: dawnstuff1998 <DawnStuff@...>
To: raccoonwatchers@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Monday, July 13, 2009 3:11:25 PM
Subject: [raccoonwatchers] Re: New video
Hi Kell!
Great video. I love watching all of them. What was it that you tossed to Miss Kitty? It looked like a potato chip? Her kits are bigger than Mamasita's, although I think Mama's are fluffier.
In a later post, you or someone, mentioned overfeeding. How much food do you think a mama and four kits should get? Mamasita's babies have started eating the dog food and grapes. Do you know how long they continue to nurse? After she's had her fill she goes up to a dark area, does some grooming then she lays down on a flat ground juniper and nurses the kits. At least that's what I think is going on. I shone a light once to see what they were doing and that's what it looked like, but I didn't want to keep the light on for more than a second so as not to disturb them. She still eats ravenously and her babies are eating more too. They have discovered how yummy the grapes are now and they go nuts over them. All caution goes out the window as far as Mamasita goes and she doesn't care how close her babies get to me when I've got the grapes (which makes me nervous for them to get so close). Mama comes alone sometimes, then later she'll come back with
either 2 or all 4 of her kits. They usually come back again later to see if there's more. If there's no food, she (and the kits if they're with her) will all be at the back door scratching on the sliding door. My husband is concerned that she's become too dependent on me for food and they're not learning to forage. Last week I had a scare when she only came by once with 2 kits, and then she never came back to finish the food, and she didn't come back for three days.
~Trese
--- In raccoonwatchers@ yahoogroups. com, Kelly Stroud <kellskritters@ ...> wrote:
>
> Hey all...
>
> I (finally) got a video posted of Miss Kitty and her 3 kits. The video was taken on July 2 and is just shy of 6 minutes long. The kits are now about 10 or 11 weeks old.
>
> Enjoy!!
>
> http://www.youtube. com/watch? v=-3tNsxT1Imk
>
>
>
> ~Kell
>
> See my raccoon videos!
>
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