My personal experience with special "ferret food" is that neither of mine will
eat the stuff. In fact when I tried mixing it with Iams they picked out the
Iams and left a bowl of ferret food behind. My other observation is that the
only people who've ever tried to push "ferret food" on me were those who had a
commercial interest in my buying it. I suspect there is a lot higher profit
margin on the special stuff since it's a lot more expensive. As for taurine,
I've heard that ferrets that DON'T get it can end up with health problemss and
that this is one primary reason you shouldn't feed ferrets dog food since it
lacks this nutrient. While your vet may truly feel he's right and I certainly
haven't tried every brand of ferret food on the market, I know a lot of ferret
owners and most of them use Iams (a few use Science Diet) and all of our
animals seem to thrive on it.
 
[Posted in FML issue 0717]