>Since Dervish loves both chocolate and milk but can't
>have either, I was wondering if this would be an acceptable treat for her.
>If not, would plain soy milk (or rice milk?) be okay?
 
SInce ferrets are carnivores by design, soy or rice milk (being vegetable
based) might actually be worse.  Stick with regular milk for Dervish if
you want to give it; you can deal with the lactose (milk sugar) by adding
lactase enzyme, or buying milk that already has the enzyme added.  (The
brand name around here (NY) is Lactaid, I'm not sure if that's a regional
thing).
 
Since you are probably going to go through small quantities, you may want
to buy the milk as a powder to avoid waste.
 
Some folks use goats milk.  (I'm not sure if that has any lactase in it).
I know you can buy whole (as opposed to non fat) goats milk in powdered
form around here in health food stores; the only place I've noticed whole
cow milk is in the Walnut Acres food catalog, but ask your health food
store.  You could see if he'd go for the skim stuff you can make from
powder.  That's easy to obtain.  BTW, I think the reason you normally see
nonfat powder milk in stores is that removing the fat content makes it keep
longer-no fat to go rancid.  So if you go that route and use powdered whole
milk, buy small quantities and consider keeping the opened powder package
in your fridge or freeezer.
 
If he's happy with the plain milk skip the chocolate-a small amount
probably won't hurt him, but it's got sugar in it, which isn't good for
their teeth.  (Two days ago I had to give Polly a stern lecture about the
evils of sugar after I caught her *crunching* down a peppermint candy she
had stolen.  She just licked her lips and gave me this look that said "and
your point is???" *sigh*)
 
-Ilena Ayala
[Posted in FML issue 2544]