I've often said that offering live prey to ferrets opens a whole new
realm of ferretship. Not just from the nutrient benefits, but from
their mental health standpoint. Somr folks don't understand this, some
do it's up to the individual to decide what they want to offer their
ferrets.

For those that try to offer their ferrets live prey, I say good for
you! But you cannot just toss the ferret and the prey into an arena
and expect the ferret to know what to do. The ferrets instincts need
to be awakened. They have to learn how to hunt and this takes more
than just a one, two or even three time shot for some ferrets.

Unfortunately for the prey used during this learning curve the end
sometimes is NOT swift. It's a small price to pay for the end result of
an efficient predator. If the care giver doesn't over match the prey to
the predator, this learning curve need not be so steep nor drawn out.

Insects DO take longer for the ferret to kill. Why? Its simply because
their teeth are designed to kill rodents! Yes, ferrets enjoy insects
and obtain beneficial nutrients (even Taurine -- as I've recently
learned) but their normal natural heritage diet is rodents! Their
evolutionary anatomy has designed them for quickly locating,
dispatching and devouring rodents. If they encounter a wayward
insect on their quest for the rodent, they can make use of it.

Look at the dentition of animals designed to eat mainly insects and
you'll see a huge difference between the incisors and canines. The
insectivores will have prominent incisors for grasping and biting
into the insect, while their canines are definitely recessive if not
practically non existent! The carnivore on the other hand has just the
opposite -- prominent canines with recessive incisors. Ferrets canines
are proportionately extra long and this will interfere with their
ability to grasp small prey like crickets and super worms. So of
course it will take longer for them to dispatch an insect than it
does a mouse!

Extrapolating that because it took the ferret a long time to kill the
insect means that the mouse will suffer is NOT comparing apples to
apples. Yes, some of my ferrets will crunch a cricket then leave it be
to flounder about while they crunch another and another. But they'll go
back to finish them off later. The super worms they devour as soon as
they can pick them up, which can take considerably more time than it
does for them to dispatch a mouse!

While we are extrapolating: feeding ferrets live prey will awaken their
predator but it does nothing to actually teach them to hunt their own
prey! I raise my own mice and as is par for the course with rodents,
there are a few that get loose. Now you'd think that with several
predatory live prey eating ferrets running loose in the house, that a
mouse wouldn't stand a chance! But mice are really very good at evading
hunters. While my ferrets have learned how to dispatch a mouse they are
still only used to being FED the mice! They follow me into the bathroom
where the mouse colony resides and watch wistfully as I feed the mice
or clean their bins. If it is a day for mice they get lucky. They
quickly dispatch the mice they are Fed. I have to hand the mice to
them. They'll grab the mouse as I lower it to the floor or they'll
pounce on it as I put it in the shower stall, but they are still being
FED. I've had several mice get loose this past year and even my fastest
dispatcher, Crystal, has not caught one loose mouse! I have to catch
the mice using a live trap, then feed the mouse to the ferrets. I don't
put an escapee back into the breeding population because I don't want
to breed smart mice -- just plump mice!

Cheers,
Kim

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[Posted in FML 6235]