Raw food certainly gets people going, however the zoo comment in one
of the posts caught my eye.
>Let me ask you a simple question - what do zoos feed their resident
>lions? ...... raw meat.

Well, I have a friend who works at the local Zoo and I was curious 
about the meat they serve to the big cats. Here is her response:

"Meryl,  This is what the Zoo feeds to its carnivores: 
http://www.naturalbalanceinc.com/zoological/carnivore5.html#Product
We follow the manufacturer's guidelines and keep it frozen until
needed. Thaw overnight and feed the next day. Any extra is discarded.
I don't think anything special is done to the meat that is not done to
meat for human consumption. We actually feed this to birds too (she
probably means birds of prey ). No problems that I know of so far."

I looked at the Natural Balance website. It shows that for their frozen
product that the protein content of the diet referred to is 18%, fat
is 5%, but it is a moist food and the first ingredient is beef hearts
(yuck!). It does mention on the site that it could be offered to
mustelidae as "part" of their diet. They do not have a commercial
product for ferrets. Their dog and cat diets look pretty similar to
other commercial foods.

I have never seen the lions/tigers in the local zoo eating raw meat
that looks freshly cut from a whole animal. We did see an unfortunate
peacock fly into the lion "canyon" at the zoo's Wild Animal Park and to
everyone's fascinated horror it was quickly dispatched - without time
to scream - by three lions. That was fifteen years ago and I still
remember how we gaped at the speed of those large lazy looking lions.
Fast death though - not a bad way to go. But not the best way to go -
that would be a glass of champagne, icecream, a nice soft bed
- and also a friendly ferret kissing/cleaning my face (after finishing
the icecream) with nice rough clean tongue.

But I digress. On the Natural Balance website bones are mentioned as
mixed in to the ground meat. I found another site which provides
commercial raw food (again frozen I think) and also starts with meat
from USDA certified facilities - http://www.animalfood.com/zoo.htm
I imagine if people are really interested in feeding raw food buying
from commercial vendors would be far safer and easier putting mice
through the mincer and hoping they don't have Ecoli or salmonella.

I am curious as well about the lady with the long lived ferrets. Does
she buy them as kits so she knows their ages? I only occasionally know
how old mine really are since they are mostly adult "rescues" with just
a few young ones of known ages.

Meryl

[Posted in FML 7196]