I can't recall who first told about it or if the person is back on the
FML, but someone here told many years ago of looking at a ferret and
seeing the ferret picking pieces of food from a dish and placing them to
the ferret's side away from the the observer.  This was an usual behavior
so the person sneaked up and found... (Can you guess?)  The ferret had
adopted a wild mouse which was snuggled up next to the ferret, being fed
piece-by-piece the ferret's food.
 
Odor: it depends on how much the ferrets generalize the odor of the mice
fed to them, but it is possible that they might begin to see pet rodents
as a food source of they generalize the odor or the odor and appearance
(such as fast scurrying) enough.
 
MC, interesting -- and different results than what some whole rabbit
feeders in Britain told me.  It would be great if people actually had
enough numbers with well designed studies to know what is what in these
regards.  With mice, though, I'd expect that more of the animal may be
consumed and that could possibly be useful.
 
Folks now pick dietary hypotheses and pick what suits life styles, but
hard data would be great to have since there is no way to know if even
fine hypotheses will pan out or fizzle once they are carefully tested.
Granted, one with a lot of interesting data behind it is less likely to
fizzle but even then it can at times happen, so as long as folks keep
what is known separate from what is hypothesized and use their judgement
then later confusion won't happen if studies don't pan out.  Personally,
we do follow some concepts from several hypotheses but if they fizzle
then they fizzle and we'll just know that an idea didn't work rather than
thinking that the world has been stood on its head and getting confused.
 
The reason I keep emphasizing this point -- of knowing hypotheses from
proven facts -- is because of all of the confusion that persists to this
day in relation to things like blood tests for lymphoma (useless), and
sugar during insulinoma (which with *advanced* cases can be useful in
conjunction to meds -- see other post today).  People who didn't tell the
difference between a hypothesis and a known fact have thought that there
were flip-flops in knowledge and got terribly confused -- in a few cases
even angry -- but actually there was simply a refining of knowledge in
each of those cases when a hypothesis turned out to be flawed.  There is
nothing wrong with winding up with a null hypothesis because finding out
that an idea didn't pan out also teaches a lot; the question can be more
important than the answer often.  I know MC has worked to separate a
hypothesis from a known fact, but others have not been able to tell the
difference sometimes and it's been uncomfortable for all as a result when
that confusion exists.  So, learn first and then try what you choose
based on what you learn, but know the difference between what is known
and what is suspected -- just in case the suspected thing doesn't pan
out.  It's much more comfy and safer as an attitude in the long run.
Anyway, I've said that more than enough.  I expect that enough people
get the idea; at least I hope that they get it enough to be optimally
comfortable.
 
>(I do hope you are not referring to meat substitutes such as plant
>proteins offered up by the vegan advocates.  BAD BAD BAD!  Ferrets are
>obligate carnivores.  They need the proteins found only in real meat,
>not processed soy.)
 
True, with a refinement: muscle meat is not nutritionally balanced for
them, so they need more than that, and THAT is why it is good that they
also get organs and other tissues, no matter what sort of source is used.
(And THAT is known for our known obligate carnivores.)
 
>Have you noticed that your "sweet babies" have fangs, i.e. canine teeth?
>That indicates that they need animal protein to survive and thrive.
 
Nope.  Loads of herbivores have fangs, too.  I've got a pile of scars
from an assortment of primate fangs.  Fangs are great for defense.  The
teeth that point to an carnivorous diet are the premolars and molars
that have slicing modifications.  The lack of an appendix is another
indicator, and there are more... BTW, we also have canine teeth, but
for humans they have become (to varying extents) human-incisor-form
(shovel-like form in humans, though incisors have different shapes for
different uses in other critters) so they are more useful for eating
vegetable matter.  Canine teeth are a topic of much confusion among many
people.  (BTW, although there is not yet enough data to know how the
ferret's health or longevity may be changed or not in response to grains,
ferrets do lack the broad grinding surfaces such as we have on our molars
that accompanies a decent grain portion in diet.)
 
I'm personally interested in if some of the nastier carcinogenic
by-products of high-temp cooking may be an issue in relation to prepared
foods and -- if so (It is an *IF*.) -- how the food preparation can be
modified to see if that *possible* (hypothetical) risk can be removed
from pet foods.  There is a hypothesis that humans -- due to long history
of cooked food -- may be able to deal with such compounds usually, but
our critters would not have such a pre-adaptation.  In any study there
would need to be a way to separate out multiple factors from each other.
[Posted in FML issue 3938]