Re: Gerber Baby Food
<about the new and "improved" formula - added onion, celery, and cornstarch>
If you're looking for "just chicken" baby food, you may want to check out
baby food that you find in the health/organic food section in your
supermarket or in a "health" food store.  The foods there have pretty simple
ingredient lists.  Wow!  Labels you can read and know what the ingredients
are!  No carageenan, guagar gum, or di-methylsomething-or-other.  I would
assume chicken baby food would probably be just that, chicken and water.  It
might be worth it to check it out.  Sometimes the "organic" foods are a wee
bit more $, but they are produced by small companies that are trying to make
foods healthy for you (fuzzies too!) and the planet.
 
And if you are in dire straights for just plain, old chicken-only baby food,
why not roast some chicken and blender-ize it? Some chicken, a little
water, and a blender sound like the makings of chicken baby food to me! :)
There are books on making baby food and I imagine they would tell you
how to freeze or can/process batches of food.
 
Re: Ferret Foods
<Corn as an ingredient, Ethyoquin, and ferret foods>
From what's been said here before, food that has meat (like chicken, beef,
etc.) listed as the first ingredient is what you look for when finding food
for your carpet sharks since the meat protein is necessary in a carnivore's
diet, rather than vegetable proteins.  You also want the protein level to be
reasonably high...30% or more.  That's why folks often use kitten chows.
Corn is fine as ingredient as long as some sort of meat tops the list.
 
Ethyoquin - people have hashed this out here before with no real conclusive
answer.  Some say it's bad.  Some say there's no real evidence that it is
bad.  It's up to you to decide.  One thing that did come up and you should
keep in mind, some meat products are treated with this stuff as a
preservative before arriving at the pet food plant.  If this is the case,
you may never see it listed as an ingredient.
 
Our kids like Marshall's, Dad's Low Magnesium, Dad's Kitten, Science Diet
kitten, and Iams Cat. They depise Iams kitten and some ferret chow that
I can't remember the name of. Dad's is the only food carried by our
supermarket that lists chicken, not corn as the first ingredient. Our kids
all have different favorites. We mix the foods and let them decide. We keep
it varied by changing the mix every day. (It's easy to introduce new foods
this way too!)
 
-kim, mike, squirt (pig-boy putting on his winter weight), pippi (the
lean, mean playing machine), atlas (the fussy one), and hijinx (ferret
garbage disposal - eats everything)
 
Kimberly Burkard     |             _    Everything I needed to know in life,
Eastman Kodak Company|      _____C .._. I learned from my ferret:
Rochester, New York  | ____/     \___/  Frolic and dance for joy often, have
[log in to unmask]<____/\_---\_\    no fear or worries, and enjoy life.
[Posted in FML issue 1328]