IF YOU ARE OPPOSED TO THE PRACTICE OF FEEDING LIVE FOODS, PLEASE SKIP THIS
POST.
 
A personal point to add to the "feeding mice" discussion.  I decided to
give it a try, especially because we have a little girl who's just not
eating much... and eleven other ferrets I figured would be interested.  One
of them once climbed a tree, harness and all, in hopes of having a squirrel
for dinner, so I figured she'd be interested.
 
I bought one live mouse from the pet store I work at.  They're feeder mice,
humanely raised but not particularly hand-tame.  They're fat and healthy.
I've fed them to plenty of snakes.  If our store carried frozen, I might
give those a try, but I actually trust the live ones more.
 
Anyway, Mr. Mouse had a temporary home in the bathtub (who mentioned that?
it's a great idea), where he skittered around and enjoyed a bit of bread.
We tried our sickly girl first, but she was uninterested.  Then we tried
3-year-old Gibber, who decided mice were small ferrets and left the little
guy alone.  Too many years of nothing but kibble.  Besides, she has a major
sweet tooth--if he smelled like sugar, she'd have gone for him, but not
otherwise.
 
Simon was next.  He's not even a year old, so we thought maybe he'd have a
few more hunting instincts.  He did get the concept of mouse=food, and
chased it around a bit, but couldn't figure out how to kill it.  The poor
mouse started to get scared, so I went and got Tess, our year-old girl.  I
dropped her in there and she grabbed the mosue and broke his neck in about
three seconds.  Simon then stole the body and ran to the other end of the
tub.  No one actually ate the mouse.
 
We attempted to get every ferret to eat the mouse, but none could figure it
out--it wasn't small, crunchy, and round.  Oh well.  One of the cats
finished the job quite nicely.  So the experiment failed.  I think it would
be possible to get them used to eating mice, but probably more work than
I'm up to right now.
 
Flames from those who ignored my warning are more than welcome, but please
keep them private, okay?  Just so you know, I have nothing against mice,
and actually have known and loved a few of them--but the fact remains that
they're part of a food chain.
 
I did find out, though, that only about a third of my ferrets have anything
like a hunting instinct!  Might be good to tell all those people worried
about ferrets going feral... we could set up a controlled experiment with
pet-raised ferrets and live mice, and see how many succeeded in killing
their own dinners.  :-)
 
BTW, wish us luck with Lucy and Pinky.  Lucy's the one with the swollen
vulva who's being monitored until we can afford surgery; Pinky's her
sister, the little silver I'm syringe-feeding because she won't eat.
 
Jen and the Crazy Business
[Posted in FML issue 2756]