Greetings from Ferret Endowment for Rehab, Research, Education and Training
Society North West here in Washington State.
 
For all of you who "feel" that you dare not feed your ferrets anything
other than the proscribed commercial ferret food, please be informed that
this Society has for the first time tonight provided to two different
litters of kits, fresh, sweet watermellon.  The results were delightful and
I hope rewarding in the long term, since these two different litters of
kits have to date fed on mother's milk, Lipinski's Ultimate Mustelid
Porridge Soup ,which goes by the acronym LUMPS, whole sections of bone-in
chunks of boiled chicken, and now for the first time in their lives, fresh
watermellon.  On Friday, if I see in the newspapers ads sales on cantalope,
they will be tasting that for the first time in their lives.  In addition
they will be getting whole fresh meat from my friendly meatcutter at a
price that's hard to beat, and that's free.
 
I can tell you without fear of contradiction that these ferrets will just
about eat anything and they certainly will not be "finicky" eaters, nor
will they rely on only one or two different kinds of commercial, kibbled
ferret food.  In fact they will be eating better food than the most
expensive commercial ferret food you can buy, and by comparison costwise,
I'd guess that the cost of my home-made ferret foods are about 1/10 the
cost of the commercial stuff.  And you know, I can eat my own ferret food.
It's that good, wholesome, delicious and nutritous.
 
I do wonder sometimes about all you ferret folk out there, how many of you
are currently feeding home-made ferret food, or how many of you have ever
thought of preparing your own?  I do feel that the shelters, or rather the
people who run them, as well as you ferret breeders, and complain of the
high cost of running a shelter, have considered such a common sense course
of action.  It's economical, it's more healthy for the ferrets, and
hopefully, if you are as lucky as I've been in the last 19 years, you will
never ever xperience a case of that dreaded green slime malady, often
referred to as ECE, the epizootic catarrhal enteritis.
 
To top it off, your ferret(s) will likely be much healthier, be more
robust and active, and will live a longer time in prime condition than the
ferret(s) who are on tightly restricted commercial stuff that is loaded
with shelf-life, wharehouse preservatives, food byproducts, meals of unholy
kinds, and fillers.
 
Just in case you're wondering about the two litters of kits they were born
March 28th, 2000, the offspring of father ferret "Amore", and of mother
ferret "Rothobji-ni".  The litter name is "AmoRo" and the three kits are
differentiated as AmoRo-ichi, AmoRo-ni, and AmoRo-san.  If you are an
Aikido, Ninja, or Karate practioner and know your Japanese, you will
recognize the terms, "ichi," ni," and "san" as the numbers 1, 2 and 3.
 
The second watermellon devouring litter is termed similarly from the names
of the father and mother ferret, the litter being born April 8th, 2000 and
are ID'd as "BanPri-ichi", -ni, -san, -shi, -go, and -roku.  These are the
first of our newly developed line of "GIFERS," which stands for "Giant
Ferrets."
 
I wonder if there is anyone out there who can guess why Ferrets NorthWest
ferrets are named in the manner chosen?  Anybody?
 
Edward Lipinski@Ferret Endowment for Rehabilitation, Research, Education
& Training Society, NorthWest, aka F.E.R.R.E.T.S.,NW or simply: FNW
[Posted in FML issue 3049]