Pictures of Sir Ian McKellen & Sir Patrick Stewart

[randomname]

Some new pics of the guys from today

 Sir Patrick Stewart




Sir Patrick Stewart

Sir Ian Mckellen eating some mint 

[Deleted]

Lovely! The mint photo is adorable!

[Bexi87]

Sir Patrick has a real "what on earth are you doing?" look on his face

[moletteuk]

Gorgeous Love the mint one and the significance of the mint one Looks like he's enjoying it

[randomname]

They are doing so well. Both eat lots of dried forage & some hay, huge improvement in their poops since I got them. They don't eat much fresh stuff, but like herbs & an occasional tiny piece of carrot. They're both really friendly & seem happy & healthy. Is lovely to have chins around again, especially two softies like these guys. Am working on getting some more stuff for the cage at the moment, more ledges & natural toys first, then maybe some Manor Pets stuff (when I win the lottery!)

[randomname]

Yesterday we had a breakthrough. I saw Sir Ian eat some hay! At last!
They only ate nuggets when they first came to me. Refused all hay. I started them on forage & I usually put a bowl of 3 kinds mixed together in for them everyday. It's been slow progress, but now they are excited about forage, they always come over & root through & eat some. They like dandelion especially, but will eat green oat grass, plantain, nettle, thistle. There's a couple of things they ignore, but it's still huge progress. I put hay in racks & all around the cage, but it's mostly ignored. I have started to put the bale hay in the racks recently & use more expensive 'posh' hay as a mixer in the forage sometimes. Maybe that's what has persuaded Sir Ian to eat it? I put a handful of really soft posh hay in the forage bowl, & Sir Ian just ate it like it was dandelion. Proper munching it all, cramming it in his mouth. Not nibbling a stalk then leaving the rest. The weird thing is they've had that hay before & not bothered.
I've been worried about their dental health in the long term, so this has made my day. They have come a long way since I got them. Hopefully Sir Patrick will copy Sir Ian & we can get them eating a proper diet. I'd almost given up on that.

[moletteuk]

Fantastic!

Makes you wonder if they are like humans and susceptible to being tricked into trying and liking something! Just shows that persistence and trying different locations and combinations can help.

[randomname]

When my youngest kid was little he had sensory issues with food. He had a very limited diet. We saw all kinds of experts & one of the things I clearly remember was a nutritionist telling me a normal kid needs a food served to them at least 20 times before it become familiar & they're likely to try it. It almost doubles with sensory kids. I often wonder if animals have a similar process.

[deguconvert]

WOW! That is very interesting information . . . that would have been great to know!!

[randomname]

Another thing she said that stuck in my head was about calories versus nutrition. She said that the body absorbs calories first, then nutrition. So, for my son, she said that it wasn't a terrible idea to give him something hideous like a mars bar for breakfast to make sure the calories got in there, then feed him healthy snacks & meals for the rest of the day to cover nutrition. She said when a human is starving if they ate healthy food, it would be absorbed as calories with very little nutrition being taken. In normal eaters this doesn't apply as our bodies haven't gone into starvation mode, but in super fussy eaters, it's worth taking into account.
Maybe this is the equivalent of what we do when our degus won't eat & we give them nuts, baby food etc? What do you think deguconvert?

(P.S it all ended ok with my son, he eats quite a variety of food now. The other day he ate a Phal curry which is hotter than a Vindaloo!)

[deguconvert]

OUCH!! That's HOT!!! I ate a curry that would have been considered a "two hanky curry", and I had to stop and start eating straight plain yoghurt because my stomach was SO painful from the heat of the peppers. Didn't bother my husband at all until he needed to use the toilet the next day. I couldn't decide if I was sympathetic or thinking it was his just desserts. LOL!!

That is very interesting about the calories, nutrition, and how starvation plays in. Hmmm, "food for thought" ROFL!! But seriously, I will be mulling this over.

[moletteuk]

I can vaguely remember being a very fussy eater as a child. I think the smell, texture and taste of some things was just overwhelming, the dial was just turned up to 11 for the sensory effect compared to the experience of eating now as an adult.

[zenaida]

*must refrain from posting all sorts of weird facts and stories about feeding therapy*

All the things you guys posted are true! The multiple exposures to a food, senses being heightened as a child and dimming a little as an adult (they keep dimming too)> i hadn't heard it phrased in the calories then nutrition way you just said, but it is consistent with what we do when we make a feeding plan to separate out "family meals" for calories and "therapy meals" that work on increasing repertoire. 

The only thing I know about the feeding process with animals is that it is often strongly imprinted by the mother's feeding patterns. In the wild, you ONLY eat what your mom eats, that way you learn what is safe to eat and not eat. Humans go through a "stage" like this as well. Usually sometime in the 2-3 year old range. Take the kid to a restaurant and they don't want to eat their meal, they only want to eat what mommy ordered. It might be possible that Sir Ian's mother never ate hay and it took him quite awhile to come around to it.