Dear Ferret Folks-

For reasons unknown to me (what have I done to earn such kindness?)
I have had an Anonymous Benefactor sending Todd the Butter-Butt and
Caff-Pow free bags of Totally Ferret. The late, lamented Hebert
benefited from this kindness as well. I am told by April at Totally
Ferret that my Benefactor wishes to conceal her identity. Well, I have
some *suspicions* about who my Anonymous Benefactor is but she wishes
to be known only as "She-Who-Will-Not-Be-Named" when April and I speak.
So she shall be. Thank you, whoever you are.

Well, I got into a bit of trouble. I was out of Totally Ferret and
didn't have it in me to be so crass as to call them up and say "Please
send more." Not for *free*. That's just...pushy. That's how it felt.
Pushy. So I thought "Well, I'll just go back to the usual stuff and
either a new bag will come or it will not. I don't want to soak
She-Who-Will-Not-Be-Named", who has already done more than enough."

I got a bag of my usual ferret kibble. I will not be so crass as to
name it. It has perfectly decent nutrition at a reasonable price. I
have fed it for years with no apparent ill-effect.

A few days pass. Hmmm. What's that smell? Have I neglected the backin'
up box in the cage? (I just had an adventure with that, the boys water
bottle didn't seal right and drained into the backin' up box and then
emptied out into the plastic cage base. Wet newspaper, wet bedding,
wet newspaper pellets, wet...you know. *Nasty* clean-up!)

Hmmm. Fresh cage materials...where is that smell coming from? Bedding?
No. Wash all the shelves, change a lot of bedding. Still smells. Hmmm.
Is there a secret pile somewhere, a putrid mother-lode in the darkness
beneath the furniture somewhere? I crawl around my house with a
flashlight. One or two poos, but nothing that should be causing the
odor.

I eliminate the impossible, and am left with one inescapable
conclusion. Fettets eating TF smell MUCH better than they do on my
regular kibble, which has no fish-meal, by the by. Ferrets eating my
regular kibble REEK. And this is the time of the year that REEKING
becomes a serious problem. It is hot and humid. This is the time of
year that upholstery smells bad, unless you are obsessive like me, and
stay on top of the situation. Carpets begin to smell dank. I *hate*
that. And I *hate* the way the ferret room smells.

Enough! I called up TF and said "MORE! I will happily pay for it!" They
are sending a bag, to which I look forward to with some eagerness. Now,
I have not tried every ferret kibble available on the market. I am sure
that some result in more strong odors than others. But in my experience
(and as I write this my box fan in the ferret room is going full tilt
boogie, gonna run the wheels off a the buggy, Martha) TF really *does*
live up to it's promise, loosely defined here by me as "less stench."

The boys look good, too. Caff-Pow is a like a Black Lab, Todd the
Butter-But has lost that enormous kit butt and now look s like a sleek
summer-weight Marshalls boy. The teeth look good. Eyes bright, coat
soft, noses wet.

Now, please do not take this as a shot fired over the bow of the Raw Vs
Kibble debate. This is not an *invitation* to debate that, again. I
feed kibble for my own reasons. But you better believe, I'm going back
to TF. Not the cheapest kibble available, but does not have insane
things like pineapple chunks, and oh, the olfactor side benefits are
worth it. If other folks out there have something to add about which
kibbles reek and which do not, I think that would be interesting
reading. We all want the best for our Businesses. But we prefer not to
smell them from twenty paces in August.

Alexandra in MA

[Posted in FML 6416]