Someone wrote:
>I use a 1/2 and 1/2 mixture of KayTee and Meow Mix.
 
Say it isn't so........PLEASE.
 
Hmmm, I happen to have gotten in a couple ferrets on Meow Mix the other day
and haven't trashed the box that came with them yet, let me look at the
ingredients...first ingredient GROUND YELLOW CORN, second ingredient CORN
GLUTEN MEAL, third ingredient CHICKEN BY-PRODUCT MEAL....(what is by-product
meal....never-mind, I am afraid I already know).
 
Even if we throw out the third ingredient, the first two are GRAINS!!  The
digestive tract of a ferret is simply far too short, and their metabolism
far too fast for grain products to be digested and used by the ferrets.  Any
vet who really knows ferrets will tell you this.  Plant products take a long
time to digest, the ferrets digest and excrete the foods far too quickly for
them to digest plant products.
 
So basically this food is useless and offers at best a minimum amount of
useful ingredients for ferrets.  They need animal proteins and animal fats.
Check out my website if you will at http://www.flash.net/~ffrs for more
nutritional information.  It will explain why Kaytee is not that great, and
so does yesterdays post by me to the FML, so I won't go into that again.
 
>Now before anyone jumps on me all my girls are very healthy and active.
 
They may *appear* to be healthy, but what is really going on inside their
little bodies??  To quote from the article..."The ferret requires some 65
nutrients and they are subdivided into seven (7) major categories -
proteins, fats, simple carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals and water."
(Incidentally, my dad appeared "healthy and active" two hours before he
dropped dead of a heart attack, too!  It couldn't have been all that ice
cream and fatty foods he ate for the 50-some-odd years prior to that that
killed him at a young age.)
 
>Ootz would not eat anything but MM when we got her.  I like the hard food
>because it is better for their teeth and they get plenty of nutrition with
>the KT/MM mix.
 
I believe the paper written by a vet and a pet nutrition expert (which I
happen to have up on my website) states pretty plainly that a KT/MM mix does
NOT supply the proper nutrition.  How could it, when they are not based upon
the correct proportions and ingredients for ferrets?  To quote from the
article..."The ferret requires some 65 nutrients and they are subdivided
into seven (7) major categories - proteins, fats, simple carbohydrates,
vitamins, minerals and water."
 
You are right though that hard foods are better for their teeth.  However,
I'd suggest Iams Kitten Food or Totally Ferret instead.  Your ferrets will
live much longer, healthier lives on these.  Will probably save you lots in
vet bill as they get older, too.
 
I get ferrets all the time who have only been fed cheap grocery store
catfoods or plain old "ferret foods" that are not very nutritional and have
successfully gotten all of them to switch to a healthier diet in a short
time.  You just have to realize that YOU are the one to decide what is best
for them.  And you have to be willing to go the extra mile and prepare
special hand-feeding mixtures for the "stubborn children".  I'd be happy to
train Ootz as well to eat Iams or Totally Ferret, I am close enough to you
to do that, so just yell if you want me to do this, I'd probably only need
to keep her a week :)
 
Excuse me...I am going now to dump this box of Meow Mix in the trash now.
See ya.
 
Trish
Director, Ferrets First Rescue & Shelter
[Posted in FML issue 1920]