>From: S.HEWETT
>To Dr Williams, Sukie and Troy Lynn.
>Dr Williams, there is only on thing in your post that I would querie, and
>that is that ferrets have a low cholesterol diet.  I am more of the mind
>that ferrets can be harmed by too much unsaturated fat in the diet and I
>actually make sure that my lot (currently numbering 21, with 12 of my own,
>1 rescue and 8 boarders) have a diet including a fair whack of saturated
>fats.  Daily, they have diced raw beef, full-cream lactose free milk with
>added cream and egg yolks and high quality biscuits.  Interestingly, none
>of my ferrets are overweight, although this may be due to the fact that
>they are never confined, but have free run of the house and large back
>yard, more than anything they eat.
 
Interesting - at this point I still have never seen a ferret with
atherosclerosis, and have looked at ferrets fed all types of diets.  Just
because a particular animal is fed a high cholesterol diet, it doesn't
mean that they will suffer from atherosclerosis.  Researchers for many
years looked for animal models of atherosclerosis, even feeding ultra-high
cholesterol diets and have only come up with a few - inbred strains of
rabbits (Watanabe), New Zealand White Rabbits, and Carneau pigeons.
 
Cholesterol metabolism is much better in true carnivores, which a ferret
should certainly be in.  If you look at the species above, none of them
would be expected to have developed mechanisms for good cholesterol
metabolism, as it is usually not a significant part of the diet of
herbivores.  Cholesterol metabolism is strongly dependent on quite a few
factors, including genetics.
 
It would be interesting however, to look at the tissue of some of your
animals after a long life on your particular diet to see if atherosclerosis
was engendered.  My educated guess would say that it would not be.
 
With kindest regards,
Bruce Williams, dVM
[Posted in FML issue 3223]