Pam Grant wrote:
>I still say that for a good treat, get a free sample of quality cat food
>that is different from what you are feeding the fuzzies and let them think
>it is a treat.
 
Our guys love dog food (Nature's Recipe, lamb & rice).  Why I haven't a
clue, since I'd always heard that the reason cat food was so much more
expensive than dog food is that cats are pickier, so their food had to be
made to taste better.  But the ferrets think its ambrosia, so...  But I
agree that some sort of animal food makes a better treat than most things -
even if its a cheap grocery store brand, a kibble or two a day won't be bad
for them, and can't be as nutritionally useless as raisins, cereal, candy,
or whatever...
 
As for ferrets and raisins - I think there are an AWFUL lot of people
on the FML who rarely give raisins, and still have the same problems
with illnesses.  And, a lot of sickly ferrets (like ours) who have
always hated raisins.  While this might be a factor for some
illnesses, I can't see how its a major cause of illness overall.  I'm
not even sure they really do get sick that often.  There are 1700
people on the FML.  I haven't a clue what the average ferret/person
ratio is, but only a small minority of FMLers don't have any, and I'd
guess that a LOT have more than 3.  Even taking a conservative guess
of an average of 2 ferrets per FMLer, there'd still be 3400 ferrets on
the list.  That's almost 10 times as many ferrets as there are days in
a year, so even if a ferret got sick once in 5 years, you'd still have
2 FML ferrets getting sick every day.  (And once in 5 years isn't bad
for a critter with a relatively short life - How many humans make it
to, say, retirement age, without ever needing to go see a doctor for
more than checkups???) I realize that a lot of people on the FML don't
post about ferret illnesses, but still...  the FML doesn't get
anywhere *near* 2 messages/day with NEW ferrets coming down sick.
More than 2 messages, maybe - but a lot of those are replies to an
original post, followup posts, etc.  If you actually watch for a month
and count how many different sick ferrets are posted about, I bet it
really wouldn't be that many, considering there are 1700 people (and
many more ferrets) on line.
 
- Rochelle
[Posted in FML issue 1440]