Yesterday, someone wrote "Raisins are known to be toxic to carnivores
and should never be fed to ferrets."

Raisins are toxic to all carnivores? I do not know. (I have personally
witnessed our local fox eating half his weight in wild grapes day after
day each fall!) However, they are unquestionably toxic to dogs. Never
feed raisins to a dog. Vets report that dogs getting into a box of
raisins is one of the most common fatal dog poisioning situations that
they see, and it's a hard, bad way to die.

The current school of thought is that you should not risk feeding
raisins to ferrets, however, many ferret folks report truthfully that
they have fed small numbers of raisins to their ferrets daily for years
without any apparent problems. There was a study done a few ago years
suggesting that large numbers of raisins fed daily could harm a ferret.
The frustrating part of the study is that there was no clear number of
raisins identified as "too many" That, and the fact that so many have
fed raisins daily for so many years without problem has lead many
ferret folks to simply disregard the warning.

I cannot tell you how many are "too many", but I wouldn't entirely
disregard the warning, either! Don't leave that raisin box out where
your small friends can get into it on their own. You don't want to
find out how many are too many. And remember that ferrets are really
not designed to be fruit eaters. Raisins deliver a big slug of sugar
to your ferret, and ferrets aren't designed to be big sugar eaters,
either. Please remember that ferret teeth are carnivore teeth. Ferrets
have some trouble licking chewed raisin off of and from between their
fangs, leading to potential tooth decay. Ferrets also have a very short
digestive tract. In general, raisins are pretty easy to chew up, but
ferrets aren't good at digesting hard chunks of dried fruit. There is
a potential there for a blockage, which can lead to a life-threatening
episode. If you are going to feed raisins to your ferret, make sure the
box is a fresh one with only *soft* raisins. Throw the old hard ones
away. And ask yourself , is it worth the risk? There are meat-based
treats out there for ferrets which may be more appropriate.

Again, PLEASE! Don't leave that raisin box out where your dogs or
ferrets can get to it. And if you have kids, tell them not to feed
your dogs raisins, and why.

Alexandra in MA

[Posted in FML 6063]