Abby-
First off we recommend you check out ferret central
(www.ferretcentral.org),
if you haven't already, for a lot of good ferret information.  Now on to
your questions:
 
Do not feed your fuzzies CAT food!  It does not have enough fat for their
metabolisms- KITTEN food is the better choice, or a commercial ferret food.
Our fuzzies personal favorites are IAMS kitten food or Totally Ferret ferret
food, or some mixture of the two.
 
Totally Ferret has resulted in the best coats on our ferrets.  It can be
hard to find a pet supply store that carries it, but it can be ordered from
the Jeffers Pet Supply Catalog (1-800-JEFFERS).  We highly recommend giving
it a try.  It's a little more expensive than IAMS, but you won't go through
it as fast.
 
As for litter, we use wood stove pellets rather than kitty litter because:
  1) pellets aren't dusty like litter
  2) pellets don't dry out ferrets skin the way exposure to clay litters can
  3) pellets don't lodge in various ferret orifices the way clumping
     litter can
  4) pellets are cheaper, so you can just dump the whole litter box out
     out every day or so (no more scooping!), depending on the number of
     ferrets you have and their output levels.
 
You can find pellets at Fleet Farm stores,Menards, Home Depot, that sort of
place.  In our area they're about $3.40 for a 40 lb bag.  We store them in a
garbage can with a lid, since our fuzzies think scattering pellets is really
fun.  Folks in the south seem to have problems finding pellets in the
summer, but us Minnesotans don't run into that :)
 
Happy Ferreting!
 
Janna and Aron (humans)
Einstein, Daisy, and Bandit
 
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* This must be Thursday; I never could get the hang of Thursdays.     *
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*                                       - Arthur Dent                 *
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[Posted in FML issue 2293]