Youch!  Where did this come from?  Yes, ferrets NEED the extra protein and
fat that's in kitten food.  Keep feeding Iams kitten and you should be just
fine.  Honest.  I feed Excell Kitten, which has ingredients comparable to
Iams.  Here's the key: High protein and high fat.  My Excell reads: Crude
Protein minimum: 34% Crude Fat minimum: 22%.  Another way to look is at the
ingredients: If corn mean is 1st or 2nd listing, it's not a good food.  Look
for a food that mentions ground corn 3rd or 4th.  Excell lists: Chicken
meal, rice flour, chicken, ground corn, etc.
 
Compare to Purina kitten: Crude Protein minimum: 34% (good), Crude Fat
minimum 8.5% (not good).  1st 4 ingredients: Poultry by-product meal, ground
yellow corn, soybean meal, corn gluten meal.  That's corn twice in the first
4 ingredients.
 
My ferrets love the Purina, so I mix 4 lbs of Excell with 1.5 lbs of Purina
and my boys are fat and healthy.  But I've been considering weaning them
off the Purina slowly.
 
Cheap grocery store brands aren't the best, either.  And not all ferret food
is good.  Kay-Tee and other pet store brands aren't any better than Iams
kitten and may be worse.  Marshall Ferret food is good, and Totally Ferret
is good, the others aren't so good.  At least that's the info I think I've
learned here on the fml.
 
Anyone?  Since when is Iams kitten not a good food for ferrets?
 
--Sheri
[Posted in FML issue 1945]