FOODS AND FEEDING: HAND-FEEDING:
 
Feeding a sick ferret can be difficult, and I personally dislike the
use of syringes for feeding because of the danger of aspiration and
subsequent pneumonia.  In short term cases, just dipping your finger in
the food and letting the ferret lick it off is sufficient.  A couple of
dips and licks, each one getting closer to the food dish, and soon the
ferret is eating on their own.  In long-term cases, I use a combination
of plastic spoons and large plastic and small glass medicine droppers to
administer food to a weak ferret.
 
I have found plastic spoons FAR superior to metal spoons for feeding
ferrets.  I look for plastic spoons with a deep and narrow bowl, but any
plastic spoon is better than a metal one.  Food cools faster in a metal
spoon compared to a plastic one, lessening the aroma and taste.  Many
ferrets dislike the touch of metal on teeth and old ferrets may have worn
teeth, especially their canines, that may be sensitive to metal, causing
discomfort and reducing the ferret's desire to eat.  For weaker ferrets
that are still trying to eat but can't manage the spoon, I use a large
plastic medicine dropper that holds approximately a teaspoon of liquid
food (about 5 cc).  I just slowly squeeze the bulb and let the ferret
lick the food from the tip.  For ferrets that can't manage that, I drop
down to the smaller glass medicine dropper, and with the ferret in a
normal eating position, drop a drip on the tongue just past the incisors.
Sometimes I just dip the end of my finger into the food and rub it off
on the ferret's tongue or teeth.
 
Here is the blunt truth; if a ferret is too weak to eat from a medicine
dropper, using a syringe to push food into the mouth is downright
dangerous.  If the ferret has a chance of recovery and needs to eat but
can't for one reason or another, I suggest the possibility of using a
feeding tube -- inserted by a vet -- to decrease the chance of food
aspiration.  If your ferret aspirates food and gets pneumonia, their
chances of survival are severely limited.  You may not even be able to
detect aspiration pneumonia in your ferret and just notice they are
weakening or dying.  My recommendation is to start with plastic spoons,
move to large plastic medicine droppers, then small glass medicine
droppers, and if they don't work, forget the syringes and have your
vet insert a feeding tube.
 
Make sure you only feed fresh food.  Reheating left over chicken baby
food is potentially dangerous because it is likely that the ferret's oral
bacteria contaminated the food when feeding it to them the first time,
and the bacteria has had time to grow since.  This is especially true if
feeding baby chicken and only re-warming between feedings; the food and
warmth beg bacteria to grow.  Weakened ferrets generally have suppressed
immune systems, and it would be a shame for a ferret to survive an
expensive life-threatening injury only to die from a bacterial infection
contracted from eating a few cents worth of contaminated food.  If you
are worried about wasting food (store-bought baby food IS expensive),
use the "two-spoon system"; use a clean spoon to dole out small amounts
of the food from the original container as needed, and a second spoon to
feed the ferret.  What the ferret doesn't eat should be discarded.
 
Make sure to heat the food.  Warm food has a stronger smell, helping to
entice a ferret to eat by helping to stimulate hunger.  Also, warmed food
doesn't drop the ferret's body core temperature as much, and while the
drop may be minor, the ferret can use every calorie saved for recovery.
 
Bob C
[Posted in FML issue 4405]