I'm glad Kim chimed in being that she feeds raw and live foods on a
daily basis. I only disagreed about a few things. An animal can be a
close cousin to another species but some physical traits be obnoxiously
and wildly dissimilar. So I was uncomfortable with the wolverine
references. You can't get as similar as a ferret is to a mink (other
than polecat), yet mink owners here I'm sure will tell you that their
bite is very different. If you've ever looked inside a minks mouth it
looks very different. You can see huge bulging masses of muscle on
either side of the throat/mouth. Its insane. I cringed a little about
the medium sized dog references. Ferrets do not have the same jaw
strength as a medium sized dog. I'm willing to lay money down on it.
I can think of some small dog breeds that surely would have more jaw
strength. Kim just a request. Please, putting a statement out there on
the web when referring to something that affects peoples and animals
lives when you have no reference or proof can be catastrophic. You have
no idea. Now a scenario such as the following can happen: Someone gets
curious about ferrets and especially a suppossed ferret attack in the
news, they google ferret bite strength among other things ... you
writings come up. And many average folk would take run with what you
said as undisputable fact (especially given the fact that you come
across as a professional/expert in your writings) and a wild fire
begins that can take years to put out.

Moving on, I was wondering could we on the FML work on a collaborative
effort here regarding facts, theories and experiences about this topic?
We have the people here to come up with something usable. I'd like us
to lay some experiences, references, facts and stats out into the
forum. Then possibly put them together into one writing/post. Fanciers
can save that post in their important papers so they can reference back
and forth when educating others about this subject. If an accident
were to occur in my city and if the media were to contact me for an
interview, I must say I'd be like a deer caught in headlights because
I wont state something unless I'm very certain of it. My lack of
answering crucial questions and ability to rebut incorrect statements
in a news report could be damaging.

One of our biggest champions could be Bob Church. He's the "bone guy".
Of all people he should know a bit about jaw strength with ferrets (and
other animals). He is quite an expert on diet and behavior as well. I
understand there are no studies and we cannot answer the question of if
a ferret can snap a human infants finger off and ingest all of it. But,
he could no doubt tell us if a ferrets stomach can hold 7 1/2 infant
fingers in its stomach at one time. From process of elimination we
could whip up quite a bit of accurate info. We also have an esteemed
pathologist that specializes in ferrets in the ferret community, Dr
Bruce Williams. He may have some very helpful information. Dr Murray,
Karen, Ruth, etc, have years of experience and have witnessed ferret
bites. If someone here is a working health professional and has treated
actual proven ferret bites in the ER, it would be awesome if you piped
in. Sukie-pa-dukie, our brilliant researcher ... you know how to find
and most importantly, understand, the studies already out there
relating to this topic. And I know I am unwittingly leaving so many
important people out there. I'm not asking for any of you to risk
putting your reputation on the line with conjecture. But offering up
what we "do" know and cross referencing would be extremely helpful.

Here are examples of things we need to know:
How much can a ferret ingest in one sit in? Two table spoons of baby
food or a four once jar of baby food? An entire hopper (juvie mouse)?
Two adult mice?

What parts of a mouse or chick do the ferrets leave behind or eat last?

Does a ferret get incited by something flailing or is it discouraged?

What is the ratio of ferret to human bites vs dog to human bites?? I
don't want top know there were x number of ferret bites in the year
1998 and x dog bites the same year. that tells us NOTHING. I'd like to
know many bites out of how many dogs occur (frequency rates)? How many
bites out of how many pet ferrets in the populations?

What is the nature of those bites ... does the species tend to bite
and be done or does the species tend to "eat"? Does the animal shred
or clean cut chomp things off? What kind of damage occurs?

When a ferret digest bones, are they as thin as toothpicks such as what
is found in a mouse, or hollowish such as found in a chick? How long
does a ferret take to "eat" bone when it does?

Has a study been done or likened to DOMESTIC ferret jaw strength? What
can a ferret bite in half, what cant he? We simply canNOT even begin to
think about generalizing what a minks or polecats jaw can do to what a
domestic ferret can do. Perhaps there is much known in this area about
Black Footed Ferrets since they are so closely studied .... and
although I would not want to relate what they are capable of to a
domestic ferret (since they are not the same species at all), it'd be
interesting to know. I mean what if the biggest bad of the bad is
known to not be able to snap off baby off baby fingers? That would
be extremely helpful to know.

How many cases have been PROVEN where a ferret ingested human flesh?
How many? How many cases are there that we "know" it's happened beyond
a reasonable doubt even though there was no necropsy?

What are other pets who have been known in the past to do this other
than dogs? When rats have been involved, wild or not, do they just
shred the tissue off leaving the bone intact or what?

It would be easy to ramble on about how a ferret eats, or to supply an
exhausting list of references regarding stats when giving input. That
would not be helpful for people to have. So if you are contributing, I
hope that you don't catch "Wolfy-itis" and ramble on with too much
detail. Also, we dont need to know what we already know .... that
you've had bites down to the bone, that a ferret wouldn't release you
or the opposite, or what you've never seen in your life of owning
ferrets if most of us already know or have experienced it. However, if
you are someone that has dealt with dozens, hundreds of ferrets in your
life time, it's a pretty strong statement for an established person to
offer up such things. I'd really love to see everyone's input wrapped
up in a nice package that would be easy on the eye and easy for anyone
to understand for us all.

I hope people "play".

Wolfy

[Posted in FML 6946]