Hi Kathy,
 
I'm glad that it was just a misunderstanding about the "attack".
 
First of all, I'm not in the US, so I won't influence any statistic about
pet-ownership in the US ;-)
 
1)Here in Europe, we do have a few ferret foods that are produced
locally, but they are all very low quality.  Only TF is imported from
the US.
 
2)My ferret's health are my number 1 priority, so I will never do
anything that could hurt them on purpose.  And as even most ferretvets
here recommend TF, Eukanuba kitten and Hill's kitten as equal (that is
from the vets that don't support raw feeding-which my ferrets also get
as a part of their diet), I know that I don't do much wrong with feeding
my ferrets cat food.  At least not since it's not just some kind of
supermarket brand (in that case I would totally recommend people to
choose another food, even if that were one of the cheaper ferret foods).
Btw, personally I'm really not a Hill'sfan, not even for cats, yet still
it is highly recommended.
 
3)I definitely see your point, but I'm not gonna put my ferrets back to
a food on which they didn't feel as good as they are feeling now for
that reason.  I promise you, from the moment that there is a ferret food
available, with no corn, no soy, no wheat and no beetpulp in it, and with
a lot of human grade high quality antibiotic- and hormone free meat and
no by-products as the first ingredient, that I will try it immediately,
and if it pleases I will definitely switch them to that food.  For
now,unfortunately, there is no such food available though.
 
I guess you could definitely see it your way: by not feeding
ferret-specific foods, manufacturers may get a wrong view about the
amount of interested people in it, that 's true (although I don't
believe that is the only source that they get their info from).
 
But try to see it my way too: If I were still feeding TF (or another
ferret food), kowing and believing the things I know and believe now, I
would feel bad because I was adding to the profits of a manufacturer I
don't support.  By not feeding those foods, but chosing another food that
I do feel comfortable with (in this case Innova), maybe one day they'll
realize that they should formulate another kind of ferret food...
 
Until then I hope we can all just get along and take good care of our
ferrets :-)
 
Sincerely,
Wendy
 
To everyone else that responded:
 
Thank you very much for all your replies, it's great to know that there
are lots of other people that have the same opinion on Innova (and ferret
nutrition in general) as I have.  I didn't mean to get people argueing
with eachother though, so please, can't we all just get along, despite
our different opinions?  It would be great if we could just have a
healthy, grown-up discussion about this.  As someone else stated:
>Please, lets not let this get into WWIII.  Personal choice is a big
>factor in this.  We may just have to agree to disagree and move on.
 
After all, we all have the same goal: take good care of our fuzz's!
 
Thanks again!
 
 
Another question:
 
Any suggestions on alternatives for Innova are welcome (since new EU-laws
prohibit the import... )  But my actual question is: does anyone know if
there are going to be new US-regulations for the petfood-manufacturers
about things like probiotics?  I ask this because the rumour is going
that the probiotics are the reason for the forbidden import in Europe
of foods like Innova.  The pharma-industrie sees these as 'medicinal
additives' and wants them to be tested first... Another rumour says
that the pharma-lobby in the US will ask this themselves from their own
US-petfood manufacturers (and when this is done, these foods can be
imported again in the EU too, so I actually hope that this last rumour
is true ;-)).  Does anyone know IF it is true?
 
Regards,
Wendy
[Posted in FML issue 4834]