For a start, take that Peanut Butter Crunch back.  It's just a treat,
loaded with sugars, and provides little to no nutritional benefit.
8-in-1 sells what people will buy.  It's up to you to determine what's
good or not.  They do make some good products, and they make some bad
ones too - because people will buy them.  Show me a "benevolent
corporation" and I'll sell you some prime land in south Florida....
 
>one, avoid all foods that contain corn, right?  Not good for ferrets.?
 
Not so.  All kibbles, and most wet diets, contain some form of starchy
filler - usually corn, rice, wheat or some combination of those three -
as a binder and a filler.  Ferrets don't derive much nutrition from
these at all - their digestive systems can't break down vegetable matter.
(Mechanically, they can turn it into pulp, but they can't break down the
cellulose protecting the nutrients inside the vegetable cells, and they
can't utilize vegetable proteins.)  On the other hand, all three contain
complex carbohydrates, which break down into sugars.  It's widely
believed that having so many carbohydrates in their diet is a major
factor in so many ferrets developing insulinomae.
 
Those three ingredients - corn, rice, and wheat - all produce a different
"glucose response", basically meaning how quickly their sugars get into
the bloodstream.  Corn actually has a slower glucose response than the
other two.  There is still a good deal of debate as to which of these is
the "best carb", though.
 
You want to minimize the carbohydrates, but you're likely to get one of
these three anyway.  The jury is out whether corn is any better or worse
than the others.
 
>Second, avoid all foods that contain fruit such as dried blueberries
>(Wysong) or apples and carrots (Innova)?
 
Absolutely avoid dried vegetable bits like dried carrot.  Ferrets can't
digest these, and their quick digestive systems may not even rehydrate
them enough to break them apart before they cause fatal blockages.
Ferrets can break apart soft, wet vegetables, like well-cooked carrots,
but they get no nutrition from them so there is little reason to feed
veggies to them in the first place.
 
You may run into the same problem with dried fruits.  The bigger problem
with fruits is that most are loaded with natural sugars - sugars that are
much simpler and much easier to digest than the carbs found in grain,
which means a very quick glucose response.  Ferrets just don't need all
of that sugar.
 
Ferrets don't get any nutritional benefit from fruits or vegetables,
and those sugars may cause problems, so why serve them?  Be wary of any
vendor that sells you any fruit and veggie-loaded product as "ideal
ferret food".
 
Ferrets love an occasional bit of fruit, especially bananas and raisins,
as a treat, but there is no good to be had feeding those as part of their
everyday meals.  Some owners will not even feed them as treats.
 
>High fat, high protein, low carb and low fiber is good?
>
>Protein content should be 32-38%, Fat 18-22%, fiber no higher than 3%?
 
That's about right.  You're not going to find carbs listed on the label,
though.  You just have to read the ingredients to get a feel for how many
are in there.  The usual rule of thumb is to look for as many animal
products and as few carbs as you can get in the first six ingredients.
 
I have been reading that "low fiber" assertion lately, too, and I'm a
bit baffled by it.  I would like to see some documentation on that one.
While you don't want 50% fiber by any means, some dietary fiber is
essential for a healthy digestive system.  Ferrets and polecats in the
wild would get plenty of fiber and other indigestible matter from eating
whole prey.  (Skins, furs, etc.)
 
>The first ingredients listed should be an animal based product and at
>least 3-4 of first 6 should be animal based protein?
 
Close enough.  Look for as many animal products as possible in the first
six ingredients (basically, as close to the beginning of the list as you
can get).  If the label tells you it has a high protein content, but you
aren't seeing many animal proteins early in the list, it's a good bet
they're documenting vegetable proteins, which ferrets can't use.  Corn,
rice and wheat all contain significant amounts of protein (mostly
glutinous proteins - it's what makes breads possible), but they aren't
the kind ferrets can use.
 
>O.K but what is the difference between an animal based product and
>an animal based source of protein?
 
Probably very little.  Pet food manufacturers can be a little loose with
what they call the ingredients.  You might assume that the latter means
more high-protein sources like muscles over say organs.
 
>Meat is better than meat by products??
 
Not at all.  All are necessary.  Protein from muscle meat is important,
yes, but meat contains little in the way of vitamins and minerals.
Liver, on the other hand, is just full of great nutrients, but it's not
necessarily considered "meat".  Bone marrow (Bob C's favorite?) is even
better - it's a nearly complete food if I remember correctly - but it's
never labelled separately on a manufactured food, and it's kind of hard
to just pick up at the market.
 
It all comes down to this - when you're buying a manufactured food, it's
pretty much a crapshoot.  You look for the best you can get while doing
the least harm, and you have to trust that the manufacturers have
labelled the packages honestly and that they have put good ingredients
into the food.  You would do much better by your ferrets to buy fresh
ingredients and make their food yourself - or serve it (nearly) as is.
Few people manage that these days, though.  Bob C's chicken gravy is a
good start though, even as a supplement to their kibble.
 
I'm no nutritionist; this is just gleaned from my years of reading on
the topic.  I can't claim that this is 100% accurate.  Even an (honest)
nutritionist couldn't make that claim - nutrition is still as much art as
science unfortunately.  Bob C's many series, especially the "Diet 101"
series, on nutrition in the FML archives are a very good start for your
reading though.  (BIG - do have a convenient link or autoresponder
address for those?)
 
roger
 
[Moderator's note: That series is from 1988 but ferrets haven't evolved
too much since then :-)  To get a copy of the "Diet 101" posts, send
e-mail to [log in to unmask] with any (or no) subject.  The text
of the e-mail should read SEND DIET POSTS
You'll get back a few thousand lines of posts.  BIG]
[Posted in FML issue 4442]