Dear Ferret Folks-
 
I've gotten a few e-mails about my post from yesterday, about feeding
raisins.  Me, I stopped feeding them as a treat quite a while back when
the ASPCA animal poison control center announced their finding that
raisins were certainly toxic for a number of dogs, and had in fact killed
some outright.  Grapes, too.  Evidently there is something in them that
can fatally damage a dog's kidneys.  They strongly suggest not to feed
raisins and grapes to companion animals, period.
 
I searched the FML and FHL archives for information about raisin toxicity
in ferrets, and I was mostly referred back to articles about raisins and
dogs.  It was pretty frustrating.  There was nothing like "Only feed your
ferret X number of raisins a day".  I found a reference to a talk given
at an IFC event about some case histories of ferrets poisoned by raisins,
but could find no details of that talk.  I found a reference to something
printed about the issue in Ferrets Magazine, but again, no details of
that article.
 
I'm hoping that someone out there can provide the details that I could
not find, because I simply could not respond usefully to some of the
e-mails I got.
 
Now, Ping did not read the ASPCA bulletin, and that might be why he
helped himself to a as many raisins out of the bag of trail mix I left
out as he could possibly stuff into his little face.  And Puma, well,
I gave her two for nostalgic reasons.  I miss feeding raisins.  I was
going to let them each have a few more before I tossed the bag, but my
husband found it first and now it's EMPTY.
 
Am I going to go out and buy more raisins?  Nope.Unlike Ping, I *did*
read the ASPCA bulletin, and no ferret ever died from a lack of raisins.
Read it for yourself.
<http://www.aspca.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=16645>
 
Alexandra in MA
[Posted in FML issue 5158]