>From:    Kesrael Vacchon <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Dear Mr. Lipinski
>
>Kasrael writes:  
>Your advice with a biting ferret is glaringly wrong.

Dear Kesrael Vacchon, Ms, Mr. or Miss (?)

I am grateful for your posting, essentially in response to mine, 12.
Ferret Kisses and Erotic Exhalations. Looks like I ain't gonna get
no precious hug from you today. Maybe tomorrow. EL

>1) Fasting a sick ferret or one with health issues, from my
>understanding, can be dangerous. And you never never never fast a
>ferret for 2 or 3 days, as suggested in step 3 of your little list.
>Unless you want a dead ferret. I hope to all above that you never
>get a biting ferret if that is your method of treatment.

Edward's response:

Wow! Not just wrong, but glaringly wrong, she writes. Well, let's take
a closer look. Review my post. The first step I suggested is to get a
complete vet exam of the ferret before proceeding with the follow on
steps, providing of course that the ferret is healthy. And well fed.

You most certainly know that the wild ferret experiences feast and
famine. They eat when the can. That's not always when they want to,
because their wild food is simply unavailable for days at a time. This
may not be the case with your ferret who may have an abundant supply
of food available 24/7.

Being thus so, your ferret will easily tolerate a 2 to 3 day fast. But
why fast the biter ferret? You want him to be ravenously hungry. Why?
Because when he is presented with his fast breaking food, it will be
in a different form than he's accustomed to. Even so he must eat the
food which will be in the form of a warm soup. This is his customary
food but now is liquid rather than solid kibble or chunks, whatever.

So, what's with the soup? The soup is the first step in two
applications. First, he must get used to lapping up soup made from his
usual kibble, because the liquid is the means of giving him your scent
without risking a bite. You remember I said to coat your finger with
his soup and allow him to lick it from your finger, holding your finger
external of his cage. Second, the soup is the means whereby his diet is
to be improved significantly. Here you want to take your time with him
until he will devour 6 to 10 ounces of soup a day, ultimately from his
bowl or feeding can.

Now a little bit about his soup. His soup is not static. That is, it
should be, it must be, varied a little bit day by day until he'll
slurp up just about anything you yourself eat. You may have a little
hesitation here now, based on the current understanding most ferreters
have of what a ferret should eat - says who?

Consider an answer to this question. How does your own tube differ from
a ferret's tube? Be aware that his tube and your tube do essentially a
similar thing. It takes in the big stuff, acts upon it, takes out the
good stuff, and then gets rid of the stuff it doesn't use. You know
this process as digestion and assimilation, and by comparison, what
takes us about 22 hours only durates about 4 hours in his tube.

Has anybody other than I wondered what could be done to enhance the
nutritional benefit of the food transiting the tube during such a
short time of about 4 hours? How about preparing the ferret's food
in a manner that makes it more digestible and at the same time
superbly more nutritional than your ferret's current diet?

There is a simple answer. That answer is to increase the total surface
area of the food particles in transit through the ferret's tube before
it even starts down that tube. So now, we wonder, why do we want to
increase the surface area of the foods eaten? To keep this simple, let
me say that what we are going to do for the ferret is what the ferret
already does for himself, but with the expenditure of less energy,
because of our help.

Simply stated and in conjunction with the tube are a whole host of
organs that add to the tiny food particles certain substances that
enable the far end of the tube to "leak" by controlled pathways, all
the wonderful nutrients and other stuff that very quickly get into most
every cell of the ferret's body via the blood and lymphatic system.
This host of organs that secrete their specialty fluids number about a
dozen and are collectively referred to as the endocrine system.

With the mention of the endocrine system and in association with food
particle miniaturization process, you may begin to see where we are
going here. As you know, the larger particle with a given surface area,
when cut in half essentially doubles its surface area. So whatda think
we get as far as surface area if we keep halving particles with a high
speed blender that uses four cutting blades rotating about 1800 RPM,
for 60 or 120 seconds, depending upon the dimensions of the particles
wanted. Your choice of particle size: 45 percent<0.0168 inch and 55
percent >0.0415 inch.

You need not concern yourself with ferret constipation or other
blockages from foods like carrots, cabbage,cauliflower, broccoli,
onions, garlic, tomatoes, potatoes, chicken, yams, cucumbers,
pineapples, or just about any other hard fruits and vegetables. Then,
of course, are the various meats, sardines and salmon and poultry.
All this stuff goes into the soup depending what's currently at hand.
Never is the soup the same two days consecutive. The ferrets get a
wide variety of food that includes multiple vitamins, minerals and
beneficial gut bacteria from yogurt and different cheeses.

The meat is from the local meat market and is fit for human
consumption, its source being the meat debris catcher pan that lies
just below the bandsaw meat cutter. The meat is cooked with the
veggies of the day until the hardest veggies are softened, after
which time four cutting blades churning at 1800 RPM micro miniaturize
the ingredients into a warm, delicious soup.

Here's a question for you Dear Tammy, a.k.a. Kesrael: Give me your best
answer. Why do I go to all this effort to cook and micro miniaturize
the ferret food particles? Hint. Endocrine system efficiency.

And lastly, outside staking of ferrets concerns you. Well, it should
if you know nothing about it, and from what you write, that is a
conclusion easily drawn. Let me tell you briefly. We stake out as many
as six ferrets at a time with no worry.

Well, one time we got worried when a gay guy stole one of our ferrets
to give as a gift to his boyfriend. With the help of the police we were
able to recover the ferret and had the option of jailing the sob. We
didn't take that road because the thief was an illegal Brit alien with
two felonies on his record. This theft would've deported him back to
England.

You do not know our safety situation here regarding staked ferrets. So
I understand your concern. Please be at rest in your heart, for here
is the situation. Several years I raised three crows to adulthood. Two
have remained here and are fed daily at a feeding station overlooking
the ferret digging grounds. As you must know, crows are very, very
territorial. They absolutely do not tolerate other crows here and will
attack any hawk, eagle or owl that dares come near. In so doing they
make a tremendous racket with their excited cawing. They get my
attention right away. My presence alone then causes a flyaway and
problem solved. Since the ferrets are staked out all day they are fed
by scattering ferret kibble or whatever all over the ground. The crows
descend from their overlook perches and waddle just like ducks in among
and all around the sleeping, digging, or stretching ferrets. The are so
smart, because they know just how close they can approach a staked
ferret. It seems they are smarter than ferrets.

Thank you Tammy, a.k.a. Kesrael for your critique. Now I know that at
least one person has read my posting.

Omnem movere lapidem. (Latin: To leave no stone unturned)
Edward Lipinski

[Posted in FML 6212]