Elizabeth writes
>I wonder if I could get opinions on which foods actualy ARE the best.  I
>work at a pet store (up here in canada) and I have been trying to decide
>which foods i want to carry.  I spent several hours on the internet going
>to each manufacturers web page and copying ingredients and analysis's.
>One thing I notice is that people focus on corn being a bad thing, which
>I completely agree.  But what about all the rice and rice flour they put
>in the diets?  How does rice, rice flour come into the equation?
 
The bad news is that labels don't tell you the whole story and can be
rather misleading.  I am separately sending you my notes from Dr William
Sadler's talk at the Ferrets 2002 Symposium about reading food labels.
(It was posted on the FML about 2/16/02.)
 
Yes, corn in high amounts (like in grocery store cat foods) is known to
cause problems.  But I know of no research that compares the effects of
more moderate amounts of corn vs rice as the main carbohydrate.  At least
one experienced ferret vet thinks rice may be related to insulinoma.
 
There were also some posts just about a week ago on suggested ferret
foods; you may want to check the archives.
 
Linda Iroff
Oberlin OH
[Posted in FML issue 3729]