Well folks, I leave tomorrow for CaCa land, via Texas, which may not have a
lot to be proud of, but when driving across, you get to see it for a very
long time.  (Joke you rascally Texans) I hope to return to Columbia at the
end of the month, take some a week off, and then it's off to the Smithsonian
for a couple of weeks.
 
All the ferrets are doing fine.  with one minor exception.  In the last two
weeks, Sandy (from Oregon) has started displaying classic symptoms of
adrenal disease; loss of hair, vulval swelling, aggression, etc.  Took her
to the vet and the blood test indicated a problem, so did an ultra sound and
it showed a smallish left tumor.  She will have surgery as soon as I return
from CaCa land (earliest they could get her in).  We don't anticipate any
surgical problems.  She is soooooo sweeeet, I'm afraid she will melt each
time she gets a bath.
 
The rest of the business is as wacky as ever.  I can't remember if I
mentioned big ol' dumb Chrys somehow tried to wrench his back leg off when
playing, and was hobbling around, but it has healed nicely.
 
Q: (Private) With all the [ranting] on foods and treats, what are some of
   the treats you give your ferrets?
 
A: First, you need a axe handle, a chainsaw, a Fish and Gestapo agent and
   a blender....
 
To start off, just a mild comment on the on-going treat thread.  I agree
that there is a difference between what ferrets NEED and what they WANT, but
disagree that because of it they should be kept on a monontonous diet.  The
primary reason is so they are conditioned to expect new things and so accept
them more readily.  For example, I usually provide a mix of 3 or 4 high
quality chows, including Totally Ferret.  Recently, because I had my head in
a dark orifice, I didn't realize I was out of food until very late on a
Sunday evening.  Over I went to the local grocers and bought a cat chow that
was fairly good, but one they had NEVER eaten before.  ALL the ferts chowed
down on it without any problem at all.  Aside from my reservations
concerning most kibbled foods, I agree that a ferret can live a long life
just eating one type of chow.  But after a couple of years of it, just try
getting them to eat something else.
 
Second, it is presumpuous to assume that just because an animal can live on
a single food, that it would want too.  I've spent a long time in the woods
watching lots of little critters, and seen what a lot of them eat, and while
a lot of the variation in food choice is probably an adaptation to filling
nutritional requirements, some is also just personal choice.  Just using my
ferts as an example, if I poured only Totally Ferret into a bowl, they will
all eat it.  But if I mixed TF with Iams and Science Diet, some ferts will
pick out the Iams, others will eat everything indiscriminately, and still
others will pick out the Science Diet.  And that is preference, because the
foods are nutritionally similar and out of the ferret's awareness for
difference.
 
In my zealous attempt to understand what is going on in my archaeological
site, I have read hundreds of journal and book articles on food preferences
by animals, and guess what?  They seem to have a range of preferences
comparable to human tastes.  As a caregiver to the little poopmeisters, I
like to consider their desires as much as their needs, and so, allow them to
choose the foods they like best from a nutritionally acceptable pool of
foods that vary in texture, smell and taste.
 
As for treats, I also agree ferrets eating raw brocholi, cabbage, carrots
and califlower can possibly cause blockage problems, carrots in particular,
but haven't heard of many occurances.  In truth, if fed raw, these foods
give very little to the ferret in terms of nutrition, except for minor
amounts of carbohydrates and vitamins.  If cooked, especially until soft,
the blockage dangers are resolved, and the ferrets can absorb more
nutrients, but most just slows down enough to change color before passing
through.  I disagree about fruits, however, because most carnivores eat them
as part of a natural (or wild) diet.  I get a real kick out of reading the
polecat is a strict carnivore, then a few lines later reading berries on the
list of foods recovered from the stomachs of hunted polecats.  I find no
problem in given small portions of fruit to the beasts, provided they are
not suffering from digestive-system diseases that may be affected.
 
I do not give vegetables to my ferts.  I do give small amounts of dried
fruits, some raw fruit, tomatoes, frozen grapes, etc.  MOST of my treats are
of a carnivorous nature; i.e., boiled-until-soft chicken bones, beef bones
with marrow, jerky, dried fish (mine LOVE those little dried fish you can
buy for cats) and "Bob's Brew." Bob's brew is a small jar of chicken, beef
or turkey baby food, four inches of nutrical, 2 inches of petromalt, a
liberal squirt of ferretone, a teaspoon of bone meal, and a teaspoon of
hiney (Oops, thats the fish and game version.  I mean HONEY).  I mix this
well and serve on plates.  (Its hard for a ferret to lick out of a bowl
because, unlike a dog or cat, the ferret nose sticks out over the jaw, and
licking out of a bowl sticks their noses in stuff.  A plate allows the
ferret to keep the head up, and the nose out of the food.) If the ferret
walks away from it, just put a drop on your finger and dab it on the
ferret's lip.  When they lick it off, they will come around.  If your ferts
are like mine, if on a single plate, a few will eat the most, so I bought
some plastic toy dishes (about 3 in diameter) and each ferret gets their own
supply.
 
I mix the stuff up and put it back into the original jars and refrigerate
until needed.  I leave the honey out when mixing it for sick ferrets because
honey can make you "regular." (An old mommy trick to make babies go potty is
to give honey or Karo (corn) syrup and duck for cover).  One of my ferts ate
some foam rubber, and I fed her a 50-50 mix of petromalt and honey, and lets
just say it worked quite well, all over my front room.
 
Bob C and the Missouri 17
[Posted in FML issue 1933]