>I went and asked im if he remembered what the minks and ferrets were
>fed.  Guess what - raw scrape meat and ground up bones.  There were no
>processed foods available.  This was in the late 1950s.
 
Since I was around in the 50s, I have seen the dogs cats and ferret being
fed on all sorts of things and the animals that lived in the house got
fed better than the carnivorous animals that lived outdoors, the cats
outdoors were left to catch rodents and the dogs which were working dogs
got a staple diet of crushed oats mixed with what ever milk could be
spared or crushed oats and blood when one of the animals raised for meat
was butchered they also got some of the larger bones.
 
The house pets such as cats, dogs and my first ferret got meat most days
as we were in a household where an evening meal was not considered to
be a meal unless it had meat on the plate, they also got table scraps
( imagine my parents surprise when I wanted to become a vegetarian at the
age of 5 ) or stale bread covered with gravy, when the first tinned pet
foods came out my parents got the cheapest which had rusk in it and all
the indoor animals started were given it.
 
As for mink and fitch ( = a ferret raised on a mink farm ) food these
days it is a scientifically produced where as back in the 50s the mink
farm owners would go to the knackers yard and get loads of meat and other
stuff that was not fit for human consumption this was all ground down to
make a paste which was fed to the mink and fitch, this practice is still
done today but a little more scientifically in places where there are
still mink farmed
 
--
Please contact me I can be of any help, I am not a vet and in the past
30+ years none of my animals have visited my vet for anything other than
routine check up.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/intact-ferrets/
Come see my ferrets
http://www.geocities.com/houseferrets13uk/Tonys_Pets.html
Some of our fund-raising events
http://www.geocities.com/houseferrets13uk/Show.html
http://www.webspawner.com/users/ferretwelfair/index.html
http://www.headway.org.uk/ The brain Injury association
[Posted in FML issue 5208]