Hello, this is a response to Heather Jane Bilicki's question, "Will her
ferret starve his/herself?"
I can confidently say, "NO."  Ferrets like most animals (except people) eat
to satisfy their nutritional requirement.  I am a technician at a clinic here
in Athens, GA, I have owned a ferret for a little over a year, and I work at
the UGA Vet-School in the Reading Room and in the Clinical Immunology and
Infectious Disease Lab, (my point?) I try to take advantage of every chance I
get to readup on ferrets.  One night at the Reading Room, I read about a
study done on ferret nutrition.  The study allowed different ferrets to eat
for a set amount of time and then have no food the rest of the day.  Some
ferrets were allowed to eat all day.  Point is, the ferrets all ate the same
amount of food.  The ones who ate free-choice ate small amounts throughout
the day.  The ones who only were allowed access to food once a day for a few
minutes ate the same amount but ate as fast as they could.    OK--MY
point!!!!   Each of the ferrets in the study were meeting their nutritional
requirements.
So, I do not think your ferret will starve him/herself.
If you have any addition questions about Ferret health, please feel free to
write me.
Take care
Bye for now
Lance McLeroy
[Posted in FML issue 1101]