In issue 411 or somewhere thereabout, Lynn-Anne Friese said that her ferret
will not eat anything but junk cat food.   I have a little story about just
this problem....
 
A friend of mine rescued a 5 year old ferret a couple of years ago.  It was
a similar situation to what Lynn-Anne described, though not as extreme.  The
ferret had been owned by an elderly woman who fed it the cheapest food that
could be found and who left it caged most of the time.
 
The ferret, Iceman, wasn't in real great shape - patches of hair missing,
didn't look too healthy overall, somewhat overweight.  And, Iceman just
plain refused to eat stuff like IAMS or MaxCat or ProPlan.  No amount of
persuasion would get Iceman to change his mind - he once went for two DAYS
without eating rather than eat the better cat food.  Finally he ended up
trying to eat dry dog food (much to the surprise of the dog), so at that
point, Iceman's owner gave up and gave Iceman the junky stuff, which Iceman
immediately ate.
 
Luckily, Iceman really liked Linatone and Nutrical.  He also liked small
quantities of ice cream, and would sometimes eat some meat fat such as
bacon.  (Yes, we tried soaking the "good" kibble in Linatone, tried mixing
foods, tried crushing cheap food with good food, tried crushing good food
with cheap food, tried puting Nutrical on the good food.  Nothing worked.
Nothing even came close to working.)
 
Iceman turned out to be a real handsome ferret. 4 or 5 months after being
rescued Iceman had a nice shiny coat, clear eyes, and was playing with the
other animals in the house (e.g. chasing the (live) cats, hiding the (stuffed)
teddy bears).  He was sweet as could be.
 
Anyhow, so while food is certainly important, there is at least one case where
a ferret thrived on junky food.  He had been eating junk food for 5 years
and paid the price somewhat, but looks like love and attention (and probably
some Nutrical) were a lot more important in the long run.
 
I'm sorry to say that Iceman died peacefully in his sleep a few weeks ago.
He was still smiling.   Maybe the food was a factor, but the last two years
of his life were quite happy and seven years on junk cat food isn't such a
bad record after all!
 
Bill
 
[Posted in FML issue 0415]