This posting is for Beth in Australia and to any others who may wish to
avoid ECE diarrhea in ferrets and otherwise enhance the nutritional health
of ferrets by making a home-made soup that does not rely on multivitamins or
special supplements.
Ferrets are carnivores. Hence, they get briefly cooked meat, bone "dust",
fat, and blood in this soup. The presence of vegatative matter in the soup
acts to clean the colon/intestines of the ferret and enables the ferret to
produce wonderfully large (sized about length and diameter of a fountain
pen) and smooth-sheened fecal boluses. The feces are nearly odorless and
easily picked up with toilet tissue. Really pretty.
Since the transit time of food through the GI tract of the ferret (72 inches
of intestine!) is quite rapid, it would seem logical to allow the digestive
enzymes to perform their chemical breakdown of food by giving the food the
maximum surface area upon which the enzymes may work. Hence, it is awfully
important that the ingredients that go into this LUMPS be pulverized into
the smallest particle size possible.
At Ferrets NorthWest FNW on Mercer Island, State of Washington, we use the
best electric blender we could afford to grind up the ingredients into the
smallest possible particle size, setting the blender to the HI-SPEED PUREE
speed setting.
As stated above, the basic ingredients of the LUMPS are found in the home.
However, two of the ingredients require a little foraging, such as the
brewers, NOT BAKERS, yeast, either powdered or flakes. We buy this yeast at
a local health food store. The second ingredient is obtained from the local
FRIENDLY butcher or meat cutter. This is the meat and it's FREE, FREE,
FREE! We go the butcher at the close of the day and plead on bended knee
for the debris out of the huge electric bandsaw. A collector tray under the
counter of the bandsaw collects all the serrated meat, fish, fowl, bones and
bone marrow, fat and blood that is wiped automatically from the high speed
cutting blade of the bandsaw. On a good day we collect a bag of this
wonderful meat product about the size of a cantalope. Otherwise it is
thrown away as waste.
To enhance the intestinal flora of the ferret, 14 billion bacteria are added
to the final blending after the cooked soup has cooled, so as to preserve
the beneficial effects of these bacteria. If you wish you may substitute
natural yoghurt instead of the 14 billion bacteria (PB 8 Pro-Biotic
Acidophilus For Life (one) capsules).
The ingredients are: 1 cup of ferret chow or cat or kitten kibble, 1 heaping
tblsp of brewers yeast, 2 heaping tblsp of peanut butter, 2 or 3 chopped
cloves of garlic, 1 whole fresh onion (tissue paper skin removed), 1 cup of
dried oat or barley meal, then cooked separately and adding 4 or 5 shelled
eggs and non-fat milk to keep pourable consistency until egg whites are
cooked, 1/2 fresh or canned tomato, 3 chopped carrots, 1 skinned, ripe
banana, 2 or 3 cubed white or sweet potatoes, and about 1/2 cup of a mix of
chopped cabbage, brocolli, green bell pepper, and celery, and 1 or 2 cups of
bandsaw meat product. Cook the whole batch until the meat is just barely
pink and the vegetables are still a bit crispy. Add the cooked
oatmeal/egg/milk mixture when blending. After cooling, add the yoghurt or
bacteria (14 Billion) capsule.
Blend the LUMPS until there are none; the soup should be easily pourable.
Add non-fat milk to get the thicker-than water consistency of the soup if
too viscous.
Ferrets seemingly enjoy the mucoidal, sticky and slimey texture of the
oatmeal and will lick the soup cans absolutely clean, thereby eating all the
pulverized vegatative matter too. We use saved, tuna fish cans of the 6 oz
size for feeding dishes.
The three ingredients of yeast, garlic, and onion do a wonderful job of
repelling fleas on ferrets after the ferrets have been on the soup for a few
weeks.
Here at FNW we make about 3 gallons of LUMPS every other day to feed our 30
or so shelter ferrets, including our new kits, one mink, and two magpies.
Of course, most people having fewer ferrets, the surplus LUMPS may be frozen
in extra ice cube trays for later use. For fun, put a frozen cube of LUMPS
in the bathtub with a ferret!
As an added benefit, we sound a mouth-blown goose horn beside the ferret as
it laps up the warm soup. This is done to condition the ferret to the
squawk of the goose, so in the event the ferret should get lost outback (a
little Aussie lingo there) it will respond very nicely to the sound of the
goose horn during the search.
If you want a 5 pound ferret (intact) ween him on LUMPS and LUMPS every day
thereafter! Be sure to let him dig in the soil for 3 or 4 hours at least
twice a week. He'll smell so fresh and clean, just like Mother Earth and
he'll have muscles like Schwartzeneggar.
NOTE: Ferrets NorthWest has never had one case of Epizootic Catarrhal
Enteritis (ECE), the so-called "green slime diarrhea." We would like to
believe that the LUMPS is the nutritive factor that prevents this intestinal
explosion of the causitive organism. One fact for certain, ferrets on a
partial liquid diet are not likely to dehydrate, as do ferrets on nothing
but a dried kibble diet and water.
G'bye, maite (phoentic Aussie for "So long, friend")
[Posted in FML issue 1909]
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