To Amy Flemming, Mustard Charlie: I agree with you wholeheartedly that
what you advocate by feeding your ferts natural food and not having them
neutered until they are older is indeed the way to go; at least that has
been my experience too.
To Ducklite on ferts chewing cloth with those scissor-like back teeth
(called carnasials) is a simple delight to a ferret and one that is so
absolutely natural. I give my ferrets cleaned, raw chicken parts such as
legs, thighs and sides of chicken and the first thing they so enjoy doing
is tucking that chicken skin a way back into the corner of their mouth,
rotating their heads down so their jaws are parallel to the piece of
chicken they're working on and chewing with what appears to be utmost
contentment. If you get close down to them you can hear the "squishing" &
"crunching" of that tough, uncooked chicken skin being sheared into
managable chunks and then swallowed down the gullet. Oh, how much they
seem to enjoy that experience! So it seems to me, that chewing cloth is
possibly the next best thing that a poor deprived ferret can substitute
for shearing chunks of prey animal into swallowable sizes. Please let me
recommend to you that you consider offering chewable food strips to your
ferret as I do here at Ferrets NorthWest. What I do, and possibly you
might consider doing also, is to obtain ordinary dog rawhide "bones" for
you ferret after they have been prepared in the way I do it here when I'm
cooking up the 3-gallon batch of my LUMPS (Meat/veggie soup). I soak the
rawhide dog bone in an elongate can of salted, iodized water for 2 to 3
days and it becomes soft enough so that I can "unwind" it easily. I then
cut it up into strips with a pair of strong tin snips (really heavy
scissors, cause it's still pretty tough, depending upon the thickness), and
then these strips go right into the pressure cooker as Lipinski's Ultimate
Porridge Soup is being cooked. The rawhide strips take up the flavor of
the LUMPS as they are cooked with it. Then after the cooking is done (very
briefly at pressure to preserve the nutrient quality of the ingredients)
and as I am running the LUMPS through the blender at FRAPPE speed, I take
out these rawhide strips (Now called LUMPSCHEWS) and drape them over a
screen to dry and become flexible after a while. Then, the next week or
so I dole them out to the individual ferrets and watch them go to town on
these LUMPSCHEWS, chewing, chewing, and chewing. In examining their feces
afterwards I can never find any evidence of these LUMPSCHEWS as semisolids,
so it appears that my little Frettchens are able to digest and assimilate
them. Maybe if you tried this, then your ferrets would not chew on the
cloth anymore. I know that's a big job to do, but of course if you have
your ferret's good health in mind, you might give it a try. It sure works
for me.
Oh, and to those of you who are having health problems related to diet, may
I suggest that you innoculate your ferret with germs. What I mean here
is to get some germs like Lactobacillus Acidophilus, L. plantarum. L.
bulgaricus, L. casei, Staphlococcus thermophilus, S. faecium,
Bifidobacterium bifidum, and B. infantis. Most of these germs are found
in ordinary yoghurt or in a product called PB8 which is used to maintain a
healthy infection of intestinal bacteria in your ferrets intestines. These
"germs" are very important in enabling your ferret to digest and assimilate
his food. My ferrets get 14 billion of these germs every so often.
Edward Lipinski from the Ferret Endowment for Research, Rehab, Education &
Training Society NorthWest, aka F. E. R. R. E. T. S. N. W. aka FNW,
established in 1981, and still just limping along. Don't applaud - no,
just send money - Ha!
PS. FNW is no longer affiliated with the defunct organization, Washington
State Ferret Association (it's Director having absconded with most of the
associations' funds), or with its subsequent sattlelite, ladies social
club, the Washington Ferret Association, as of January 01, 2,000. The
$20.00 annual membership fee is way too much for what is offered in my
humble opinion. If others feel the same way, you may also decline future
membership too. Maybe they'll get the message, huh?
[Moderator's note: I remind readers that the above paragraph represents
Lipinski's personal opinions. BIG]
[Posted in FML issue 2922]
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