A few people have asked about taurine.  Here's a few things I've been able
to find out.
 
Taurine is an amino acid.  Amino acids are often used by the body to construct
proteins but also serve as various regulators - for example, to help regulate
neural firing.
 
In *CATS* taurine plays a key role in the contraction of the heart muscle.
Although taurine is synthesized in felines, it is sometimes synthesized in
inadequate amounts, at which point dietary supplementation becomes important.
 
So - should CATS eat food high in taurine?  I dunno... for some cats probably
yes, for others, it probably doesn't matter.  Jeez... before people knew about
taurine there were still zillions of cats running around with perfectly fine
hearts (in the physical sense, anyhow).
 
So - should FERRETS eat foods high in taurine?  I dunno.  It does not appear to
be metabolized the same way in ferrets as in cats or dogs or humans (hey, what
else is new?).  It looks like there ARE more similarities between cats and
ferrets in the way taurine is used than in K9s or humans based on the abstract
of some study I saw about the way the body metabolizes and excretes the stuff,
but that's just a guess and there are definite differences as well, and if I
read between the lines, my guess is the ferrets don't suffer from taurine
problems.  Taurine deficiency only seems to have proven to be a problem with
cats (in K9 hearts, a different amino acid, carnitine, seems to play a similar
role as taurine in cats).
 
For those worried about taurine, Max Cat food makes a big deal on their package
about how the stuff is high in taurine and if you don't feed your cat Max Cat
it'll die of a heart attack any second.  Ferrets (and cats (and some dogs :-)))
seem to like the stuff too, so I guess it's painless to include some in your
ferret's diet
 
Disclaimer:  It's easy for me to read between the lines because I don't know
what I'm reading half the time and I don't run to the library and look through
dozens of journals looking for contradicting information.  So, please take my
statements as "taurine trivia" rather than "taurine gospel".
 
Bill
 
[Posted in FML issue 0328]