No, it should NOT be said that "meat" is the best diet for a member
of Carnivora who is not past reproductive years. Meat is only a small
portion of the nutrient content of a prey cadaver. It STINKS as a
source of many nutrients such as a number of minerals and vitamins.
People who think that they are feeding naturally by giving just meat
instead of other portions of the animal as well are doing a grave
disservice to their ferrets' health. Heck, that is why Shirley keeps
pointing out the importance of whole prey. (Yeah, I listen as well as
talk, and it would surprise some to learn that Shirley and I are
friends off-list who just respect that we have some differences of
opinion, because, honestly, that isn't at all unusual in this world.
Yeah, Australia and New Jersey can get along! ;-) As for friends
differing in opinions: just ask Alex about some of our geology and
climatology discussions! LOL!)
---

Ruffle -- where to start when talking about Ruffle... Do I mention that
she was the first ferret for whom we made homemade food under the
guidance of two kind souls with doctorates in veterinary nutrition (one
with Tomlin then and Tom of Totally Ferret. We are talking AGES AGO!
Ruffle spent a huge amount of the final portion of her life (a year?
more? Okay, DEFINITELY MORE THAN A YEAR ON SOFT FOOD -- Steve just
walked in and he remembers) on soft food we specially prepared at home.
We started it not because of dental troubles (though as someone who
chewed on anything ESPECIALLY the metal tubes of water bottles (She
could not be trusted with water bowls.) as part of her behavioral
problems Ruffle wasn't kind to her teeth. No, the food was started
because she had so many medical problems and her heart was showing
early signs of kicking up so experimentally we tried salt control and
continued that (but it did not seem to make a difference). Ruffle had
so many problems because she carried a great genetic burden. The
breeders had been trying for short faces and long kit like fur
throughout life. She wound up with asthma, many skeletal abnormalities,
arthritis, many soft tissue abnormalities, and severe intellectual
restrictions (to the point where she could not even deal with ferret
body language). The vets diagnosed one of her skeletal problems as
acrondoplastic dwarfism, but she had a lot going on beyond that. Bob
Church wound up with her remains when she died at the age of six (which
was well beyond what any vets expected her to achieve) and wondered if
she was also combined gender or perhaps had absorbed an opposite gender
sibling while a fetus. Now, I know that some of you are thinking, "But
in Fox's medical text it points out that long term soft food use can
cause gingivitis." True, and so can some medical problems cause
gingivitis, including some Ruffle had at the end. She was too
compromised for gingivitis to be a major concern in comparison. (Like
many mammals with extreme intellectual problems at the end she
developed a wide range of severe, separate health problems. In her case
there were something like 8 severe problems, 5 of which could be fatal
all on their own. In fact, for her last six months or so she went from
the previous soft diet to a liquid diet because the combo of three of
her things made it impossible for her to pass non-liquids through her
esophagus.)

Ruffle taught us that pretty much any ferret can learn, given time,
gentleness, and patience. For her first three years the behavior of
anyone -- human or ferret -- totally confused her. During those three
years Steve and I constantly (no exaggeration) had badly bruises and
punctured legs because something -- almost anything -- would scare her
and whoever of whatever species was closest to her would get sudden
deep canine bites and then she would dash off and hide. The ferrets
were better at spotting when that was going to happen and would get out
of her way, so we were the ones with the constantly wounded limbs. (In
fact, when the ones who had adjusted to Ruffle when she was a kit died
it was impossible to get any other ferret to tolerate her presence and
she didn't know how to try herself.)

One day, after three years of trying and three years of times out
Ruffle suddenly realized that words can mean something. I think that
the first one was "down". Then she realized that she could point down
and we would say down and let her down. Communication! Her fear and
frustration evaporated as she learned a few words. She never learned
many, but she learned enough and never bit badly again. It was like
night and day. In fact, she even realized that times out served a
function and began giving HERSELF times out when she got too excited.
She would move away, turn her back on us, and lay down till she was
calm again. Once she began doing that all the biting of anyone stopped.
Ruffle still was more work than any two ferrets. She needed massages
every day, needed her lungs looked after for when her asthma turned on,
had to have individual time, had to have bedding changed several times
a day because she liked to drink through it and then when it was soaked
put food in it to get the food soft (That was even before we started
her special diet.) so she would sometimes lack dry bedding (since she
was mobility impaired) and the bedding would grow mold if we didn't
jump fast, etc. Then it got harder when she got her liver cysts,
insulinoma, cardiomyopathy, heart tumor, etc. Still, she showed the
importance of gentleness, persistence, and trust, so she taught us a
great deal.
---

I thought that this may interest some folks who read one of the things
Amy sent and perhaps worried. "Mad Cow" and similar prion diseases are
RARE -- far, far more so than other illnesses which have come up in the
food discussion -- and mostly transmitted from neural tissue but some
recent studies in some animals have found it in some types of muscle
(meat) as well. Also, although chickens don't tend to get it it can
survive a long while in the chicken's crops so if the chickens get
infected mammal meal and then are killed before the prions are gone the
crops might pose an infection risk. Notice that these kinds of concerns
can affect ANY form of food (raw, cooked, preprepared) used for ferrets
because they share their animal origin, though the chances are low.
Anyway, these might be intriguing for some people because the disease
*****IS RARE ENOUGH***** in most animals eaten as food in most
locations that it becomes an exercise in learning ***rather than
worry*** (though some countries, including the U.S. could certainly
improve rates of testing):
> J Gen Virol. 1991 Mar;72 ( Pt 3):589-94.
> Epidemiological and experimental studies on a new incident of 
> transmissible mink encephalopathy
> Marsh RF, Bessen RA, Lehmann S, Hartsough GR.
> Department of Veterinary Science, University of Wisconsin-Madison 
> 53706.
>Epidemiological investigation of a new incident of transmissible mink
>encephalopathy (TME) in Stetsonville, Wisconsin, U.S.A. in 1985
>revealed that the mink rancher had never fed sheep products to his
>mink but did feed them large amounts of products from fallen or sick
>dairy cattle...

Ferrets also have a far longer incubation period than mink, and if
ferrets are infected the prions change enough that their remains in
turn can infect hamsters even though the source that infected the
the ferrets can't itself infect the hamsters.

[Posted in FML 5429]