WARNING: Do not read this if you are vegetarian or lean at all that way,
or have a weak stomach.
 
Mary wrote:
>I am of the understanding that you feed your ferrets mice.  I have tried
>with my tribe of 10, but only 3 are interested in even looking at them.
>Two bury them under blankies, and our only one that is interested, (a
>spayed Path Vally Farms lady, almost a year old) takes them and lines them
>up against the inside wall of the bed, keeping them all neat and tidy.
>Commendable housekeeping, but mice tend to uh..  lose their appeal after
>24 hours.  I have tried fresh killed, frozen, skinned, not skinned..  any
>ideas?  They normally eat Totally Ferret.  All are within a few months of
>a year.
 
Edward Lipinski wrote:
>Up to this point I must admit that giving our Frettchens "pinkies"
>(new-born mice & rats) had not occured to me....
 
I am currently feeding my ferrets pinkies and 'fuzzies' (slightly older
baby mice who are starting to get hair) a few times a week.  I breed my own
mice and therefore control the mice' diet and environment completely, and
they are very well taken care of -- filtered water, clean cages, exercise
toys and an excellent and varied diet.  The adults are starting to come to
my call, and they get out-of-cage playtime on the tabletop.  The breeding
program is finally starting to take off and I hope soon to be feeding baby
mice to the ferrets every day.  I intend to retire my mouse breeder females
once they've had a few litters each, and find homes for them if I can.
 
Ferret interest in mice:
Most of mine were VERY interested.  My oldest jill couldn't care less at
first but is now getting interested, at least to the sniffing stage.
 
Stashing mice:
Doesn't happen.  The ferrets are placed in the bathtub, with a closed
drain, and then I give them their food.  Not a pretty thing for the tub,
of course, but at least it's a hard surface and can be easily cleaned and
disinfected.  No one is allowed to carry off their food.  If they don't
finish a meal, the remains go to the cats or outdoors for the wild things.
Right now I am feeding the ferrets all at the same time and letting them
"argue" a bit over the food (nothing bad, just gentle hissing 'mine!' and
some pawing, etc) as that seems to increase their interest in eating it.
Once they are fully used to mice as a dietary supplement, I'll feed them
one at a time to be sure no one gets shorted.
 
>...I have tried fresh killed, frozen, skinned, not skinned..  any ideas?
 
The reason I am posting this anonymously:
I feed my ferrets live baby mice, the younger the better.  My apologies
to those who think this is cruel...please hear me out.  I thoroughly
researched the various forms of mouse euthanasia before embarking on this
project.  I have not been happy with any of them except for, possibly,
carbon dioxide gas immersion, but I have my doubts about that, too.  The
nervous system of such a young mouse is such that if you try to break its
neck, that doesn't seem guaranteed to kill it quickly (either that, or I
just don't do it very well.) The ferrets kill these mice far quicker than
I can, by severing the spinal cord directly with a very fast strike.  I
am NOT letting them do this out of some odd idea that I'm fulfilling their
hunting instinct.  I could care less about that!  The only reason I am
doing it is that it seems to be the fastest and therefore the most
merciful.  Also, I breed my own mice because the condition of the frozen
mice I've seen (the type you buy frozen) just makes me shudder.  Yuck!!!
 
Ferrety repercussions after about 1 month on such a diet:
Behavior changes -- none that I've noticed. If anything, more energetic.
Eating changes -- eat less TF kibble on days mice are fed (big surprise).
                  have seen no gagging or choking after eating mice.
Poop changes -- hard to say, but it seems like poop volume is decreasing.
                No noticeable changes yet in color or consistency though
                that may happen as the kibble/mice ratio in their diet
                decreases.
 
Financial repercussions:
So far still in the red, though the initial outlay was relatively quite
small.  I am still trying to determine how many adult breeding mice you
need to support X ferrets, etc... but I can see that within a few months
I will be saving substantial amounts of money on kibble.
 
To potential flamers:
Please, I DON'T want to start a FML war about the ethics of feeding live
mice.  There's far more important things on the FML such as helping the
shelters and sharing information with new ferret owners, don't clog it up.
I just want to provide this possibility for people who might be interested.
Quite frankly, I treat my mice very well and I could care less what you
think about it, don't plan on changing no matter what you say, and your
sounding off about it publically is only going to annoy other readers, so
please don't.  Considering the meat sources of some kinds of pelletized pet
food (not to mention human meat sources) I don't think any of us are off
the hook in that respect, anyway.
 
If anyone has some honest, practical questions on this subject, such as
how to encourage a ferret to eat a mouse, I might post again or provide
an email address for off-list discussion.  Otherwise, I'll go back into
lurk-dom.  Have a happy new year!
 
Musty Mus
[Posted in FML issue 2540]