[Sent in 2 parts, combined.]

Why am I sure that Danee understood perfectly, despite what Kim
hypothesized about Danee in her post? Here are the reasons:

1. Danee has worked with ferrets and ferret experts for a very long
time. She is not an instant "expert" with just a few years under her
belt.

2. Danee is alway open to learning including listening to things
even if she finds herself questioning them or disagreeing with the
conclusions and as a result she presents them as they were themselves
presented. That is a precious and too rare quality; too many other
people only hear what they want to hear and then burp back what they
want to have been said, sometimes accurately and sometimes not
accurately.

3. She realizes that information changes over time, and that much of
what appears is incomplete enough that drawing conclusions from just
one source or viewpoint is risky until a large amount of well
challenged data is in from multiple experts, while drawing conclusions
from one source through a filter of strong personal preferences is
about as risky as anything can get while still treating itself as a
resource, sometimes even as risky as people who are profiting from
saying just whatever suits their wallets or their notoriety.

4. Not only does Danee have a lot of years behind her but she is an
established and respected breeder who has a long time observing many
ferrets.

5. Danee does not alter what she reports about her own ferrets to serve
an argument. She gets the information right and then she presents it.
If the vets add more info she presents that but she never alters it to
try to place "winning" a discussion before being factual. That, too, is
sometimes a rare quality, especially in food discussions where people
too conveniently find it easy to alter what they wrote in earlier posts
because they figure people won't look. Luckily, those posts can be
found in the archives. In archives it will be seen both that everyone
learns and everyone forgets a bit, but also that some people either
misremember a lot or alter a lot to suit their arguments even just a
year or two apart for the posts.

6. Danee never treats food like religion and she is not intolerant of
the choices of others, knowing that there simply are others will reach
different but also valid conclusions than hers when a situation --
including food choices -- is one where there is not a clear optimal
choice for most families. Since Danee accepts that people can reach
different conclusions about foods after learning I bet she also is
accepting of people's other personal choices. Food is not religion;
nor is it superstition; nor is it mystical or magical; nor is there
only one good answer.

Just a comment here: food missionaries scare me; I'd personally rather
people read factual articles on a variety of choices -- being open
to negatives as well as positives -- and then decided for themselves
instead of feeling that they have to go along with any bully or with
any fashion within any group. Accuracy is not a popularity vote type
of thing.

So, I trust what Danee wrote to accurately represent the presentation.
She and I sometimes differ in our own choices and conclusions but when
we do it is known that each of us read the data on each side and simply
differently weighed things that are still not well enough studied.
That is perfectly acceptable and so are different conclusions in such
situations. So, people, learn from all sides and trust yourselves and
your knowledgeable vets for decisions. No one has a right to bully you
into being a follower though some will try.

It is important to observe a few well documented pieces of food info.
These include but are not limited to:

1. The risk of infection is greater with raw food, especially for
ferrets who are health-compromised, but the most common cause of food
poisoning (though certainly not the only one) is one that most healthy
ferrets can resist getting: salmonella (though it is very hard to treat
when they do get it). Obviously, there are other types of food
infections, too, including some that produce toxins.

In the past a few ferret foods have been connected to infection when
the producers sprayed uncooked extra flavoring on the outside of the
already cooked food. The major producers of ferret foods avoid that
method now, I think, though people can check with whichever ones they
buy to ask.

The rate of infection exposure with kibble is much less than with raw
flesh foods; one recent study of poultry in PA found salmonella in
about 30% of the bird carcasses.

Home cooked food that has not been exposed to raw food has the lowest
salmonella rates.

Not all food poisoning types can be eliminated by cooking but many can.
To make home food people need to learn from reputable sources how to
make a balanced diet. One resource is http://www.petdiets.com/ and even
though ferrets are descended from the dog branch of carnivora the cat
diet is closer to their needs. There is also a preparation guide for
Bob's Gravy at the TriFL (Triangle Ferret Lovers) site.

2. Different types of food use teeth differently so the types of wear
will differ, the development of muscles may differ, and if the food
requires extreme chomping then well used muscle insertions and origins
will cause greater build-ups of bone under them so even the skulls
can differ. That's just a known factor among all mammals and the
differences often mean nothing more than just being differences. In
fact, in the Middle Ages people had more protuberant jaws in much of
Europe because the food they ate caused them to eat more incisor
against incisor food while these days human lower incisors typically
rest just a little behind the upper ones. See where you place your
teeth when you close your mouth.

3. Food choices need to be suited to the medical needs of the ferrets
when they can affect health, so one with diabetes may benefit from
fish oil and Brewers Yeast added to the diet, while one with kidney
disease may benefit from fish oil and will benefit from reducing the
phosphorous intake by doing things like substituting cooked eggs for
some of the protein in the diet, etc. If a ferret is prone to calcium
oxalate uroliths then the oxalate intake needs to be reduced, it seems
(still under study). If the ferret is prone to cystine stones then four
of the amino acids must be reduced, usually meaning that the diet will
need to be 35% or less protein to avoid early death.

4. Different types of kibbles have different textures so some snap
easily while others do not. I think that anyone who watched the
recent Totally Ferret taste testing learned that when the people
were pleasantly surprised at how well they broke apart easily.

5. Too much Vitamin D causes hypercalcemia in ferrets just as it does
in dogs. This results in calcium deposits in organs. (Humans tend to
need more D but have trouble with a lot of A. Ferrets, on the other
hand, are descended from ancestors who ate livers pretty much each
day so they handle Vitamin A well; in fact, one study found that high
levels of Vitamin A protected ferrets against canine distemper and
helped with actual recovery from infection by that disease, but that
is another topic which is in the archives of both the FML and FHL. So,
just know that perhaps many ferrets get less Vitamin A than might be
optimal if there is a CDV exposure risk.)

6. Too much vegetable protein causes ferret urine to become alkaline.
That can cause struvite urinary tract stones, the most common type
encountered. A full urinary blockage can be fatal so never fool around
if those happen.

7. Nutritional Steatitis can be caused by too much polyunsaturated fat
or too little Vitamin E and is most often encountered when too much
oily marine fish is fed. A few years back it was again encountered when
a new FHL member had been using a cheap grocery store cat food. If I
recall right that person also had struvite stones appear from the high
vegetable protein content of the foods.

8. A form of rickets or probably pseudo-rickets (nutritional
hyperparathyroidism) has been seen in ferrets who were getting too
little calcium in their diets. They typically were fed too much flesh
meat and too little of other nutrients, or were fed mostly very young
chick or very young mice whose bones were still not very ossified. It
can also happen to the kits of mother ferrets who do not get enough
calcium and is sometimes called "swimmers disease" because of the
swimming motions the kits make when trying to move.

9. Thiamine deficiency has been seen with ferrets who were fed raw
egg whites or fed too much fish.

10. Zinc toxicity has been seen due to galvanized cages or dishes.

11. Mercury toxicity has been seen in some who had diets that were
primarily chicken. It came from the mercury treated grain/corn fed
to the chickens instead of being used -- as it should have been --
as seed for crop production.

12. Salted fish have caused salt poisoning in ferrets. On the subject
of salt types, NuSalt in too high amounts has provided more potassium
than is healthy for the heart so those providing that for ferrets
taking diuretics have to be careful about dosing. Banana is a safer
source for potassium for most of those ferrets.

13. Not all home provided diets are high enough in arginine, but that
is a rare problem. Commercial diets are fine in that regard.

14. Cooking and food preparation pretty much "predigest food" in that
they break it down some. This means that such foods are more easily
digested and that also makes them better for compromised ferrets and
for at least part of the diet of fast growing ones. The amounts of
enzymes found in raw foods don't help with digestion because the
stomach acid destroys them. BTW, this is a hot topic currently in human
nutrition because it looks like processed foods DO result in the uptake
not only of more of the other nutrients but also of nutrient energy
sources (Calories) than their unprocessed ingredients would otherwise
produce; in other words processed food can get you fatter faster.

There are also postulations/hypotheses. One of these is that
carbohydrates may cause an increased rate of cases of insulinoma.
There also is plenty on this, both pro and con in the archives and
the question will be open till a lot more is known.

Anyway, I think that silly assessment of Danee's notes on that talk
merely shows a lack of information about her abilities and background,
something to be expected by someone who has only had a few years with
ferrets. (Yes, people can learn a lot fast, but it takes much more
time and an open mind to learn a REAL lot and especially from many
perspectives; Danee has that characteristics and the invested time.)

In the interest of full disclosure: we feed some quality kibbles and
get hearty, happy good life spans from most, though we have a history
of also taking in some with health strikes against them from the start
and they and few others who get unlucky such as one with JL usually
live shorter lives than most of our ferrets get, but not always
shorter. Our experience with ferrets has been over a span of 30 years,
and -- yes -- I do agree with people who find that ever since fancies
began being "produced" in large numbers too many of the ferrets are
less healthy and shorter lived, a problem that echoes that of many dog
breeds and other domestic animals too often bred for appearance.

So, make up your own minds after reading enough on each side and expect
information to increase over time. Don't accept guilt from what others
write just because they use different approaches than you use, and
beware fashion for fashion's sake in everything except places where it
can't hurt, like clothing styles.

Sukie (not a vet)

Recommended ferret health links:
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/ferrethealth/
http://ferrethealth.org/archive/
http://www.afip.org/ferrets/index.html
http://www.miamiferret.org/
http://www.ferrethealth.msu.edu/
http://www.ferretcongress.org/
http://www.trifl.org/index.shtml
http://homepage.mac.com/sukie/sukiesferretlinks.html
all ferret topics:
http://listserv.ferretmailinglist.org/archives/ferret-search.html

"All hail the procrastinators for they shall rule the world tomorrow."
(2010, Steve Crandall)
On change for its own sake: "You can go really fast if you just jump
off the cliff." (2010, Steve Crandall)

[Posted in FML 6888]