Amy wrote:
>>A species appropriate diet is the best diet. No study needs to be
>>done to establish that fact. If an animal is designed to eat a
>>certain diet, and it's body is set up to digest and use that diet,
>>that IS the best diet.

And Sukie wrote:
>Welllllllll, yes and no.
>
>Past selective pressures DO narrow what is best under natural
>conditions for a species IN YOUTH AND IN REPRODUCTIVE YEARS, but once
>a ferret is beyond normal reproductive years there is not a natural
>selection situation which defines what is healthiest.

All responsible zoos, under the guidance of their vets, have been
feeding their carnivores a species appropriate diet for many years,
so I posed three large zoos the question of whether or not older
carnivores need a modified diet. Their answer was that old carnivores
sometimes need to have their food cut up a bit smaller, and extremely
old ones may need a calcium supplement because of their inability to
crunch up bones (and I notice that old ferrets do better with a little
more added fat), but their dietary requirements remain the same.

In the wild, carnivores typically die of starvation due to their
inability to hunt well enough to supply their needs, or get killed by
predation, or killed by their own species because they are no longer
able to compete successfully to maintain their position in the
hierarchy, or are unable to protect their "hunting grounds".

They do not die because their food is no longer appropriate.

We should be able to expect our ferrets, protected as they are from
the dangers of living in the wild, to live much longer than their
wild counterparts.  Alas, in so many cases, this is not happening.

Cheers,
Shirley

[Posted in FML 5426]