Hello fellow furry ferret folks,
 
   I wanted to mention that when I bought my ferret here in Toronto,
I purchased a Hagan 'ferret' kit with her.  It came with Hagan ferret food,
a hamster water bottle, guinea pig cedar chip bedding, a dog rubber ball,
and a rabbit cage.  Obviously there's not a lot of ferret specific stuff
out there so most of the time the rule of thumb is, find the closest thing
made for other animals and substitute :)
   I haven't used the cedar chip bedding, as I use a towel in her cage,
but everything else is used.  The ball is pretty hard rubber, and doesn't
chew very easily.  It's too big to fit into her (Jazmine's) mouth, but
she can get enough of a grip on it to carry it around a little.  It's
rather hilarious to watch.  The food had half decent protein and fat
percentages, but I have since found better.
   Right now I am using the Kay-Tee ferret food, and it seems to work
well.  It is 35% protein 18% fat, and also has small amounts of
L-Taurine (it's the 3rd last ingredient listed).  I don't know much
about Taurine other than the fact that someone on this list mentioned
that it was very highly recommended for ferrets.  It's also got
some blood meal in it (I heard someone else mention that they
preferred food without this for ferrets).
   Just for fun, I thought I would check out some other food in the
pet store.  I looked at IAMS kitten food and it had about 32% protein and
about 12-14% fat (I can't remember exactly).  They also had some ferret
food with less protein and fat.  Neither had any Taurine.  I was thinking
about switching, but I don't know now.  The other stuff is cheaper than
the Kay-Tee ($12 Canadian for 3lb.2oz) but this can lasts about 2.5 to 3 months
so the $4 or $5 savings isn't that relevant.  Does anyone have any information
about Taurine or other food related stuff to mention?  I'd like to know a
little more about it.
   Another thing... with the Christmas season here, we have put our
Christmas tree up.  Our little shark Jazmine likes to play with the
branches and dig in the tree stand.  She often emerges from under
the tree with her face soaking wet!  Is there any chance of harmful
effects from the pine tar or needles?  She did manage to get some
pine gum in or around her eye that seemed to be bothering her.  We
did our best to wipe it off, and she's better now.  She also
managed to find a pine cone and devour some of it before we caught her.
I know for a fact that that wasn't good for her, because it messed with
her regularity.  She's recovered from that too.
 
Oh well, enough rambling...
 
Happy ferreting.
 
Charlie Cook
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[Posted in FML issue 0664]