>From:    Bob Church <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Bob C: Diet 101 pt. 6
>...Every pet owner should be required to spend an entire month by
themselves in
an empty room, eating the exact same food for every meal, and once a day,
for a few moments, someone comes in to talk to them.  There is a window so
you can watch others walking around, doing things and having fun, but they
>ignore you.  The toilet is next to the bed; it doesn't flush but is emptied
>every few days.  The room is small and you can walk back and forth, but you
>have no room for the type of exercise that preserves physical fitness.
 
Bob, I love reading your posts.  They're informative, often humorous and I
believe that they are factual and accurate.  I think you're a wonderful
ferret person, list contributor, etc.  Ok, enough back patting.
 
We all feel guilty enough, feeding our ferrets what we do feed them, after
reading your continuing saga on the average ferret diet.  No need to
additionally berate us for caging our ferrets for their safety during our
work days, giving them a toilet that doesn't flush, etc.  In a perfect
world, they wouldn't even be pets or domesticated, but they are pets and
this is not a perfect world and sometimes there are compromises.  Mine, by
the way, have free run 24 hours a day.  And hey, they can use the flush
toilet any time they want!  :-) Unfortunately, they prefer non-flushing
corners.
 
But back to the diet thing... Sadly, your posts are not going to change what
99.9% percent of us feed our ferrets, and I'm not proud to admit it, but
that includes me too.  The diet posts are wonderful education, but honestly,
how many of us are going to go out and get a freshly killed rabbit (U.K.
ferret owners excluded :-)) and throw it down on the kitchen floor for our
babies to go at it.  Where would one even get something like this?  Buy one
in the pet store and wring it's neck?  Trap one in the backyard?  Doesn't
sound likely.
 
If my house were burning, I believe I'd risk dying trying to get my ferrets
out.  I'd spend every cent I had (and have done so) to get them whatever
medical care they need when they're ill.  But somehow, I just can't find it
in myself to throw them an animal's carcass to chew on.  We own our own
home, but I just can't see a dead animal laying in the kitchen for them to
eat.
 
Bob, I love the diet series and If you really want to help us, in addition
to telling us what's bad about a kibble diet, and what's natural and good,
give us a "recipe" of things that ARE available to us that can come a little
closer to matching a natural diet.  I'd be willing and able to go out and
buy them steak, shave some hair off the cat, throw in a few bones, whatever.
If it's a choice between kibble and road-killed squirrel, the kibble will
win hands down every time.
 
For the ferrets,
Mike
 
* Michael F. Janke, [log in to unmask]
* Secretary, South Florida Ferret Club & Rescue
*
* Visit our web site:  http://www.miamiferret.org
[Posted in FML issue 2313]