Actually, all of the reasonably balanced food choices, including whole
adult animals used raw and good kibbles, have downsides and upsides
with no clear way for anyone to claim that any of the choices is best
for ferrets. There simply is NOT yet research: physiological,
microbiome population, and genetic to know what may be optimal for
ferrets.

So, there are opinions, but experiences are going to vary.

Studies on domestic dogs found some surprises, rather than whole prey
being optimal diets for dogs both genetic differences -- a DOZEN of
those -- and multiple microbiome differences from wolves, indicating
that a more omnivorous diet is optimal for domestic dogs, albeit with
higher animal protein levels than turn out to be optimal for human
health.

You can find links in both the FML and FHL Archives to detailed
information on these topics. Both FHL Archives have been having some
problems recently so trying the FML one first makes sense. The link
to it is in the header of each day's FML.

No one has yet studied how domestic ferrets and polecats differ from
each other in such regards.

Yesterday a poster wrote:

>Second ingredient is sweet potatoes. Third ingredient is peas like
>you mentioned. Both are ingredients for Insulinoma.

But the reality is that the dietary cause hypothesis for insulinoma is
ONLY a hypothesis and still lacks supporting studies, nor are these
foods among the high glycemic ones that I recall as listed in
discussions of the hypothesis, though I am not going to bother right
now to strain my eye looking up their glycemic index listings. This
hypothesis was originally derived from another hypothesis, that one on
diabetes in cats which has been quite strongly disproved in multiple
studies. So, the hypothesis might pan out once carefully studied but
may not.

BTW, sweet potatoes are not potatoes. Sweet potatoes and yams are
related to morning glories while potatoes are in Solanacea as are
eggplant, nightshade, tobacco, tomato, etc. one thing people SHOULD
remember about potatoes is to not let ferrets play with them. Their
are two reasons. The first is blockage. The second is the neurotoxins
found in parts of potatoes that go green.

[Posted in FML 7964]