Jan 17 2009
Duck Soup Recipes
My favorite recipe for “duck soup” for sick ferrets (or as a treat) is as follows:
Cook 10lb chicken legs and thigh until bones are soft (1 hr or so at 15 lbs pressure in pressure cooker, or 24 hours covered with water in crock pot)
Fish out solids and set aside juice (save!). Cool solids (that’s everything including bones, fat, skin, meat, gristle, etc.) and run through grinder, food processor or blender. Do it in batches and put into a large bowl.
Cook some beef liver in a pan with a little olive oil. About 1 lb is plenty.
Grind up cooked beef liver in food processor. It works best if it crumbles up and is dry. If it’s too moist you end up with goop and it’s harder to handle.
Okay, now you’re ready to make the duck soup.
Take three cups of ground chicken, 1/3 cup of ground cooked beef liver, about 1/3 cup fat from the top of the broth and enough broth to blend until very smooth. The smoother, the better.
Portion out into small containers and freeze until needed.
This stuff is great. With the bones it it, it has enough calcium, phosphorus and other minerals to sustain a ferret for quite a while. I’ve had ferrets who ate nothing but my version of duck soup for over a year and did quite well.
The only caution is that if your ferret will be eating duck soup for a long time (like over a month) you REALLY must brush their teeth. That’s very, very, very important if you don’t want to spend lots of money at the vet’s office having teeth cleaned or pulled.
