Just a brief observation from Susie Lee of the Pensacola Ferret Rescue
regarding this (short)Quote from Bob Church statement pub. Nov. 1 :
 
>The health effects of dietary restriction have been recognized for most
>of the 20th century, yet little historic work was actually done extending
>the findings from rodents, where the phenomenon was first found, to other
>animal models (or humans).  The reasons attributed to this historic lack
>of acceptance are three-fold; a lack of investigative methodology until
>relatively recent time, a lack of clear understanding of the working
>mechanisms, and conservative skepticism influenced by personal prejudice.
 
Y'know, I couldn't help but notice, it's kind of a big stretch to move
one's dietary labwork *from* omnivorous rodents (whose diets in natural
settings include insects and grains for their protiens, in mice, and
insects, grains, and meat-bearing birds & animals, either already alive,
or conveniently long-deceased in the case of the rats, but also, for
these omnivores, Must include a variety of vegetable matter, as the care
of rats has educated me in, over this last year ), whose metabolisms are
more correspondent with that of nearly-equally omnivorous humans, *to*
that of the kind of obligate carnivore that a ferret is, whose metabolism
is likely to trip into an at-risk health state with the least amount of
restrictions, as has also been documented in other similar species in
wildlife research, such as the African Mongoose, or the Meerkat.
 
Part of the increases of health-risk factors in our domesticated ferrets
might be more easily traced to the forced ingestion of too much corn and
grain in some of their commercially-prepared foods.
 
And another part is with the freshness of the foods offerred.  Nearly all
of us have noticed that the fresher a meatfood is, whether kibbled or
freshly prepared by their care-persons, the more likely their ferrets
will "go" for it.  They are inequipped to ingest offal or long-deceased
meatfoods as the rats are capable of doing.  I'd venture to state that
with the ferrets' briefer digestive process, they are also inequipped,
metabolically, to accept anything like even a mild-to-moderate drop in
their current dietary requirements.
 
I submit that the suggestion to restrict diets belongs strictly with the
OMnivorous humans, and not with the obligately carnivorous ferrets.
 
Susie Lee, LPN,
cheif cook and bottle-washer to 37 ferrets, 2 rats, 1 dog, 9 cats,
12 doves, 1 rabbit.
at the Pensacola Ferret Rescue,
located at 3815 Tom Lane Drive, Pensacola, Fl., 32504.
 
See most of the critters' photos at...http://www.WeLoveFerrets.com
[Posted in FML issue 3956]