First of all, I would like to thank everyone who replied with advice to
my picky ferret problem.  To summarize, we adopted a ferret that refuses
to eat the Iams and Science Diet we feed our other two ferrets.  She'll
only eat supermarket brands, and even then with those, the only two she's
interested in are Purina One and Friskies.
 
> From:  Heather Garvey <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: Ferret List Issue 411
>
>   Well, when I'm home, I get Ferret Bits from our pet store. I feed
> her regular cat food when I run out here at school and she doesn't mind
> the change at all. But the Ferret Bits are from Pet America, 4433 Calumet Ave.
> Hammond Indiana 46327. (THat's the packager/distributor and it's local
> to my home.)
 
Thanks for this information.  I had never heard of this food until now.
If trying the foods from Nancy's taste test fails, I'll look into seeing
if I can get a hold of this somehow.
 
Do you have any of the nutritional information on this food? (such as the
percentages of protein, fat, etc.)
 
> Subject: Ferret List Issue 411
> From:  Grace Sylvan <[log in to unmask]>
>
> Have you tried moistening the dry food and seeing if she'll eat that?
> Back a long time ago, when I bought my 2nd ferret, I put him in the
> cage with the first with dry food and moist cat food, and it turned
> out that he wouldn't eat either. When I moistened the dry food, he
> gobbled it down. Eventually I was able to wean him from the
> moistening.
 
Yes, I did try this.  I had read in a few books that when you bring a
new ferret home, and they're not eating, moistening the food sometimes
helps.  Even though this advice was really meant for babies who are
having a tough time chewing the hard food, and ours is by no means a
baby (she's probably anywhere between 3 and 5 years old... the guy we
adopted her from didn't even know for sure), I thought it couldn't
hurt to try.  But when I did, she just looked at the food, and then looked
at me with one of those "What the heck is this?" looks.
 
Actually, I think the fact that she is between 3 and 5 is playing a pretty
big part in the problem.  Having been fed nothing but supermarket brands
for so long seems to have her pretty set in her ways.
 
> For how long will she go w/o eating anything? Are you sure she's
> eating *nothing* during those periods?
 
When we first got her and had nothing but Iams and Science Diet set out,
she went for nearly three days without eating.  That's when I got worried
and went out and got the supermarket brands.  Thanks goodness she was at
least drinking water during that time.
 
> Since you've got other ferrets starting to eat her food, here's another
> idea - leave them all with unlimited access to your preferred food(s).
> Then, a couple times a day give her access to the foods she'll eat (if
> you're really afraid that she'll starve to death).
 
Again, I tried this before, but she never seemed to want to eat at the
time I set the food out for her.  I think I'll give it another go, though,
and this time stick with it longer.  Maybe after a while she'll get into
the routine of it.
 
> From:  [log in to unmask] (Ron Ackermann)
> Subject: Getting ferrets to eat, and ferret toys
>
> Several people have had a problem getting their ferrets to eat "good"
> cat/kitten food so I thought I would pass along something that seems
> to help (with our two anyway).  We have put a squirt (or two) of ferritone
> on the food they don't want to eat.  Ours would eat rocks if it has ferritone
> on it.
 
This is another good suggestion I can try if she won't eat any of the
pet store brands Nancy suggested.  She _loves_ Ferretone, so she just
may be willing to eat something flavored with it.
 
> The local ferret rescue (Ferrets Northwest) also suggested food-
> grade mineral oil, which appears to be the "carrier" for ferretone.  Both
> of our go nuts for any kind of oil, even hand lotion (no we don't feed
> that to them, but they have helped themselves to it before).
 
My vet had suggested giving our ferrets mineral oil a few times a week
as a hairball remedy, since all three of them won't take the Hartz
and Petromalt brands we tried.  We give them about 5 drops, 2 times
a week, mixed with a few drops of Ferretone for flavor. (Mineral oil
has no scent, so this is necessary so that they won't inhale it.)
This seems to work great, especially since Mollie had a cough we suspected
was due to a hairball, and it's gone away since then.  Just something I
thought I'd pass along.
 
--
Lynn-Anne Friese
mixcom!ccwwcc%uunet.uu.net
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[Posted in FML issue 0413]