The best soup additives are actually the cheapest & easiest.  Liquid
vitamins from your vet, and an egg yolk.  The egg yolk provides extra
protein (which is especially good for insulinoma kids).  To a one-pint
jar of soup (my shelter's one day supply for the fuzzies that require
daily medications... and a couple that simply require twice daily soup to
survive, LOL), I add one egg yolk (NOT the white!) and one teaspoon of Pet
Tinic (liquid vitamins... your vet may have another brand that's as good
or better).  My soup base is simply their dry food (a high quality ferret
food) mixed with water.
 
I make up a mush of dry kibble & water once a week of two cups of kibble
soaked in water, with more water added & blended till it's the consistency
of thick cake batter.  I store that in the fridge and scoop out 1/2 cup of
mush a day into a Mason jar, add an egg yolk, the vitamins, and water to
fill the jar.  Stir it up and microwave it for 2 minutes (or enough to cook
the egg yolk).  Ladle it into individual bowls and add whatever meds or
additives (as in vet recommended stuff an individual ferret might need).
You may have to adjust the amount for your number of ferrets... My quantity
is for six ferrets twice a day with a few extras that get a bowl if they're
awake and happen to notice it's soup time.  I make the actual soup daily
since I don't like to keep anything with barely cooked egg yolk for very
long, even though I've been told that it should keep for a couple of days
easily.  And it needs to be stirred and warmed up anyway so there's not
much difference time and labor-wise.
 
For sick fuzzies eating ONLY soup, use less water, and feed every four
hours.  Same recipe... simple.  And no problems with getting them back to
eating their dry food because they like the taste of their soup better.
 
To get your fuzzies to accept a different tasting soup, you may have to
offer it to them and let them lick it from your fingers for several days or
even a week, but they'll most always eventually decide that it's ok to eat
and will make the change.  Don't give up on a flavor change just because
they turn those fuzzy snoots up the first few times.
 
Ferrets (weaned) don't need milk.  They need the protein & vitamins in the
milk, not the lactose... anything ending in "ose" you can pretty much read
as "sugar".  (That's a generalization, for those of us without the
education or time to do a chemical breakdown.)
 
We all love our fuzzies and want to give them the very best... but the
easier you can make that "very best" (whatever recipe it is) fit into your
particular lifestyle, the better the chances are that you can KEEP DOING
it consistently for the life of your fuzzy babies.  This doesn't mean that
every other recipe is bad for your ferret.  This only means that THIS one
is safe and sufficient in almost every case for almost every ferret and
it's QUICK and EASY.
 
Debi Christy
Ferrets First Foster Home
[Posted in FML issue 3160]