Hey all!
I sent a relatively long posting yesterday on this subject, but something
screwed up and it didn't get sent, so I'm gonna try again in an abbreviated
post.
 
The topic of whether veggies are okay for ferrets (being carnivorous) has
been controversial here lately, tho I haven't seen any postings in the past
few days.  I personally don't have a strong opinion either way as my frets
have never been interested in fruits and veggies (even raisins!), but I have
an interesting story to add to the controversy.
 
I'm a vet assistant (and also have a large medical background, tho that's a
different story) for a small animal vet who has a special interest (and
great knowledge) in ferrets, and since she's the only one in the area we do
see quite a few fuzzes.  A few days ago we had a sweet 7 month old female
brought in for vomiting.  She was owned by a 17 year old girl, but the
mother brought the ferret ("Baby") in and she didn't know many of the
details of the alleged vomiting.  She did say that she (the fret) never ate
anything but ferret food.  Baby looked fine that day but we kept her
overnight, and the next morning she hadn't pooped or eaten much, and had the
squinty-eyed "sick ferret" look.  We went to take abdominal xrays to look
for an obstruction, and while she was under isoflurane gas anesthesia (she
was too squirmy to get a good film without it) she vomited an ENORMOUS
amount of fluid.  That pretty much made the diagnosis of obstruction for us.
We proceeded to do surgery and found a big lump obstructing her proximal
small bowel about an inch beyond her stomach.  We opened it up, figuring it
was rubber or something like we usually see, but instead we found several
big chunks of either raw carrot or raw sweet potato (jury's still out on
that one).  Anyway, she's doing great now.  Should graduate to regular food
soon.  I guess my point is that I learned that while occasional veggies and
fruits aren't metabolically harmful to the fuzzbutts, any crunchy things
should at least be boiled until soft since they're not digested and just
pass right through (in theory).
 
Thanks for letting me input my input!
Jamie
[Posted in FML issue 1939]