Dave, LOL!  Where I worked decades ago we used to refer to a first decent
primate bite as being initiated.  Actually, I think that only two of the
ones I worked with never bit anyone there in the course of normal events:
Amy who was a wooley and Hillary who was a very elderly howler.  I
suspect that something made you seem like someone who had to be
dominated.  Even Jane Goodall lost part of a thumb-end to an ape.  It
kind of goes with the territory, and there certainly are harder wild
animals to work with.  It amazes me when people confuse ferrets who
will kiss someone to death with wild animals.
 
Thanks for all the further cage repair info, Carol and Dave!
 
Bones: Leanne, my experience with vets has been the opposite of your's.
I've run into a lot of vets who said they have handled bone ingestion
injuries with perforations.  (Yes, most were dogs.)  The specific subsets
that worry me (given the strength of stomach acid) are these: ferrets who
have the runs so the stomach acid doesn't get to work for long, or those
who wind up with a bone fragment in the esophagus.  (I was told of one
who died as a result of this type of injury.)  I don't know if people
strain their mixtures after pureeing them but i think that such a
precaution would go a long way toward eliminating that type of shard.
Ah, I just saw Cynthia's and James' posts and they strain their's.  Smart
move!  Even easily digested bits can cause some trouble if they lodge in
the esophagus (which is before the stomach) but small ones are unlikely
to cause anything worse than a temporary very sore throat (like when a
human gets a fish bone stuck there) while larger ones could do serious
injury.  My first mentioned concern: diarrhea can cause the bone
fragments to leave the stomach into the tender and twisty small intestine
prematurely.  Again, straining would make a positive difference.  In
humans stomach acid production can decrease with age; I do not know if
this happens with any ferrets, though.  It may be a further consideration
if it does.
 
Raw meats and raw milk: one of the reasons for not feeding it is to
reduce the incidence of disease.  For example: In the U.S. the shift to
kibbled foods is considered the reason that tuberculosis is almost never
any longer seen in ferrets.  Like most things raw foods seem to have both
upsides and downsides to them.
 
The end result is of course what counts.  Do most of your ferrets die no
sooner than late in their 7th year, retaining good levels of activity and
muscularity?  If so, then you are doing something that works reasonably
well.  I've known and heard of some unusually hearty ones in the double
digits on all sorts of diets -- even grocery store kibble -- but there's
no way to know at this point how much of that was genetic or what.  Would
they have done even better on a different diet?  Maybe.  I don't know.
I think some are like the 115 year old woman who recently died.  Her
staples included fried chicken and Twinkies.  She just happened to win
the genetics game so her diet made no difference.  For someone with lousy
genetics a careful diet might make an absolutely huge a difference in
quality and quantity of life, though.
 
On the other hand, f you are doing a bunch of things but the ferrets are
usually dying young or have no energy or enthusiasm then it is time to
find out which of the things that seemed like they might be good really
aren't good, or which more important aspects were somehow missed in
health considerations.  In about 21 years with ferrets and maybe 18? on
ferret internet resources hypotheses and fashions in relation to all
aspects of ferret life and care have waxed and waned in great numbers.
Some of them have worked out and some haven't; for example, there have
even been a few home med supplementation things where some households
using them which I knew about had low life spans with their ferrets
typically dying at ages 5 or 6.  Did those home med supplements
contribute to earlier deaths?  I don't know.  Maybe.  Maybe not.  I sure
know that I almost never hear of people giving them all the time anymore.
So, take the results you are seeing into account, keep accurate records,
and hopefully time will tell a lot in any direction or no direction at
all (no difference) for the many things tried over the years.  Honestly,
in most cases of things tried there doesn't seem to be a difference, but
now and then each of us wins the choice lottery and shares that info.
All that anyone can do is to try and to also to keep an open mind for
the upsides and downsides not only of what is being tried but also what
others are trying.
[Posted in FML issue 4151]