Now that I am back, I can comment on this Vegetarian food debate.  Ferrets
are indeed carnivores.  Take one look at their teeth, and you can see that
the fangs are for gripping prey and that the back teeth are for tearing and
shredding food.  That's why a ferret, when in play, will occasionally shake
its head back and forth..  they're instinctively trying to tear off a piece
of food.
 
Though this is much harder to prove, I would argue that humans are not
omnivores anymore.  More than anything else, we are carnivores.  Granted,
our back teeth are great for grinding plant material down, but we lack the
digestive tract to digest the cellulose in plants..  hence, the fiber we are
recommended to eat every day.  Fiber serves to keep everything moving
along... That is why Lagomorphs (Bunny Rabbits) have such an incredibly
large appendix..  they have colonies of bacteria set up in there that can
digest and extract the sugars in cellulose.  Ferrets lack so developed an
appendix.  In humans, that little organ is fading away rapidly, and no
longer serves a function (save to become inflamed and occasionally burst).
 
So even though our honored Vegetarians on the FML are thriving quite nicely,
I would believe that they are getting the bulk of their calories from the
toppings they put on their salads.  I have been wrong in the past, and I
will be wrong many more times before I die... but I believe that a
Vegetarian ferret is a bad idea... but that if a Hooman chooses to be a
vegetarian, then PLEASE take a vitamin supplement..  and put a little extra
1000 island dressing on.
 
     Yours in Dementia,
 
     Bryan Hall
[Posted in FML issue 1740]