Q: I am wondering what your thoughts would be on grinding the food in a
coffee grinder?  [to make it less abrasive]
 
A: Well, I hate the taste of coffee, so maybe adding ground-up ferret
food might make it taste better.  I guess I'm a bit confused...do you
mean feeding them dry ground kibble?  I m not sure how a ferret could
eat a dry powder; it would certainly take a lot of effort to lick it up.
The problem with the idea is that kibble is designed to be uniform in
texture and nutrients, so regardless of size it would still be abrasive.
If the kibble were small enough so the ferret wouldn't have to chew it,
it would be so small that it would be very difficult to eat.  The
simplest solution is to simply moisten the kibble to soften it.
 
Q: "I'm wondering how frequently you brush each ferret's teeth and if you
ever take them in for professional cleaning?"
 
A: I used to have them dry-cleaned because I liked the smell, but now
I"m on a 12-step program.  I advocate daily tooth brushing and a yearly
professional cleaning.  Shelters may be forced to brushing teeth
every-other day, but that makes the professional cleaning all the more
important.
 
Q: Do the metal tips of water bottles hurt ferret teeth?
 
A: That is a problem that is hard to lick.  I have noticed some ferrets
tend to use their canines to jiggle the metal ball in some water bottle
spouts, and others seem to almost chew the tip.  This should cause some
sort of wear to the teeth.  I noticed in a small number of ferret
skeletons some wear on the inside tips of the lower canines.  It is
possible this wear is a result of metal abrasion while obtaining water
from a metal-tipped bottle, but I cannot document the wear to that
specific causative agent.
 
What I have noticed is that many ferrets with worn teeth tend to prefer
to drink from bowls rather that a water bottle.  It may be that this
preference is due to some type of discomfort when worn teeth come into
contact with the metal spout.
 
Q: Ferrets have such a short digestive tract, wouldn't feeding them even
semi-moistened food decrease the vitamin absorbtion?
 
A: G.I. don t know...I guess, but only if they lose tract of time.  If
anything, the opposite would be true, based on the premise that
water-soluble vitamins would dissolve better and would therefore have
a better chance of being absorbed.  It takes a while for a dehydrated
food to be rehydrated, and you can bet your buttons that kibble is a
dehydrated food.  The sooner the food is rehydrated, the sooner it can be
absorbed.  Moistening it would probably be of benefit.
 
Q: ...One of my oldies had his teeth cleaned in 09-03 and now once again
he has to get them cleaned in 5-04.  Any ideas as to why this particular
ferret has this--when none of the others of my formerly large group?
 
A: Is this the formerly large group artists known as Paw-Printz?  I
don t have enough information to be able to answer this question, so
I ll answer it generally.  Dozens, maybe hundreds of different factors
influence the mineralization of plaque into tartar.  Things like
medications, diet, bacterial flora, immune response, chewing, non-related
disease, and even salivary gland output can have a marked influence on
the rate of deposition and mineralization of plaque.  One of my ferrets,
the late G.W.  produced tartar like it was going out of style and had to
have his teeth cleaned twice a year.  Tui only needed his teeth cleaned
twice, and both times were after he was ill.  Ferrets are individuals,
and while you can make extremely accurate statistical predictions about
populations, individuals may or may not adhere to those forecasts.  You
simply have to adapt your dental regime to each individual ferret.
 
Q: I'm not sure if I understood the anthropology correctly, but did you
say that dental problems arose after polecats became obligate carnivores?
If so, what did they eat before then?
 
A: Never underestimate the amount of confusion I can bestow.  I think
you misunderstood or I didn t explain it well enough.  Polecats have
been primary, obligate carnivores for millions of years.  Because they
subsisted on a diet of small animals covered with fur and feather,
containing tough, fibrous tissues and hard bones, their teeth were
cleaned and polished with each meal.  My hypothesis is that during this
long period of pronounced carnivory, some unknown number of physiological
mechanisms that help keep teeth clean were lost (or never evolved),
simply because they were unnecessary.  In the wild, this has little
impact of polecats because they eat a diet that cleans their teeth for
them, but in ferrets, that is not the case.  Pet ferrets do not have a
diet that mechanically scrubs their teeth, so they suffer from dental
calculus and periodontal disease.
[Posted in FML issue 4526]