Q:"I'm very confused.  I got [my ferret] at 8 weeks of age...I have never
been able to entice, trick, beg, or in any other form get her to eat meat
of any kind."
 
A: Well, even kibble has meat of *some* kind....
 
Welcome to the olfactory zone.  Ferrets, like most mustelids, have a very
short period of time where they "imprint" on food.  This is because ferrets
use their noses for hunting in much the same way a cat uses their eyes.
Ferrets are scent hunters, which is why they have such a big nose compared
to cats, with their itty-bitty Bugs Bunny noses.
 
By the time a ferret is 3 to 6 months old, they have been imprinted on the
foods they will be eating for the rest of their life.  After that time, and
especially after a year of age, it is extremely difficult to get a ferret
to eat anything new.  Some are so imprinted, they will only eat a specific
kind of kibble, and will starve themselves if it is unavailable.
 
There may not be anything you can do to change the ferret's mind.  I
suggest, if your ferret is healthy, to mix a little honey or nutrical with
some chicken baby food, put some on you finger, and rub it on their front
teeth.  You might have to do this several times before they catch on, so
don't try once or twice and give up.  Be a hardheaded as the little monkeys
and keep trying.  Sooner or later, they will start eating it.
 
From there, you can introduce beef baby food, lightly grilled chicken, or
even something like Chicken Gravy.  Once they associate a specific smell to
food, watch out!  Oh yeah, stop adding the honey/nutrical.
 
Q:"Would eating meat change: the weights, the bouts of illness?"
 
A: Did for Mike Tyson in his heavyweight bout, or so I 'ear.
 
Every see one of those disgustingly hard-bodied aerobic dance instructors?
That is what a carnivore is like; hard-bodied, lean, fit, with dense
muscles covered by a thin layer of fat under the skin.  Most American
ferrets I have met (in the 1000s now) are more like those inept father
stereotypes; sluggish, portly and loose muscles.  Part of the muscle thing
is hormones; a neutered animal (especially male) will not have the same
level of muscle fitness as a whole animal.  But the majority of the problem
can only be diet and exercise.
 
Consider a cage to be the ferret equivelent of the internet.  You just set
on your butt all day, with no meaningful exercise (hell, no meaningful
anything).  Physical conditioning is sometimes nothing more than lifting
cokes or chewing donuts.  It's no wonder that chair overlap/butt width
ratio of internet addicts is so high.  The same thing exists with ferrets,
except now the reason is cage time and they get their carbohydrates in
kibble.  You just don't see a pot-bellied carnivore in nature, unless the
pot belly is due to some animal lover who got too close.
 
Some of the exercise problems can be eliminated by housing in the tallest,
widest cage available, with plenty of room for running around.  Look in the
ads in the back of Modern Ferret and get the largest cage possible.  A few
extra hundred bucks now will translate later in money saved at the vet.
Also, let your ferrets out as much as possible and chase them all over the
house.  I chase mine up and down stairs, which helps both of us.  Get a
leash and take them out for walks.  Exercise, get it?
 
But exercise is only the half of it.  Diet is the other part, and maybe the
most important part.  Kibbled pet foods might have meat products listed as
the first ingredient, but that doesn't mean it is mostly meat.  It could be
(and probably is!!) 30% meat, 21% corn, 20% rice, 19% corn products, 10%
other stuff.  You wouldn't know because while the most common ingredient
is listed first, the percentages are *NOT*!  Kibble is an extruded biscuit
product, which requires about a 50% composition of carbohydrates for the
biscuit to cook hard to it's self-preserving shape.  Meats do contain some
carbohydrates (as glucagon and other stuff), but only in a very low
percentage.  You tell me what happens to an internet phreak setting on
their butt, sucking down carbohydrates.
 
I've studied a lot of nutrition, a lot of evolutionary theory and even
more biochemistry.  My instincts have long told me that a diet that is not
compositionally similar to that which was consumed during the subjects
evolutionary history cannot be optimal.  In humans, hunter-gatherer diets
are being shown to result in not only extended life spans and healthier
bodies, but also in reduced numbers of certain diseases, such as heart,
pancreatic and intestinal diseases.  Similar results have been shown in
monkeys, beagles, confined zoo animals, and other species.  I think we
would discover ferrets to react similarly.  So, while I cannot point to
specific references that state ferrets eating meat instead of kibble are
healthier (because none may exist at the moment), my experiences and
knowledge tell me it is true.  At the very least, it can't hurt, while the
elevated levels of carbohydrates found in kibbles can.  The issue of where
the meat that is used in kibbles comes from, and how healthly it was, is a
whole other post.  Lets just say "Diseased, Dead, Dying, Disabled," or,
otherwise unfit for human consumption.
 
Bob C and 19 Mo' Sofa-Based Steakivores
[Posted in FML issue 2648]