Q: I am wondering what your thoughts would be on grinding the food in a coffee grinder? [to make it less abrasive] A: Well, I hate the taste of coffee, so maybe adding ground-up ferret food might make it taste better. I guess I'm a bit confused...do you mean feeding them dry ground kibble? I m not sure how a ferret could eat a dry powder; it would certainly take a lot of effort to lick it up. The problem with the idea is that kibble is designed to be uniform in texture and nutrients, so regardless of size it would still be abrasive. If the kibble were small enough so the ferret wouldn't have to chew it, it would be so small that it would be very difficult to eat. The simplest solution is to simply moisten the kibble to soften it. Q: "I'm wondering how frequently you brush each ferret's teeth and if you ever take them in for professional cleaning?" A: I used to have them dry-cleaned because I liked the smell, but now I"m on a 12-step program. I advocate daily tooth brushing and a yearly professional cleaning. Shelters may be forced to brushing teeth every-other day, but that makes the professional cleaning all the more important. Q: Do the metal tips of water bottles hurt ferret teeth? A: That is a problem that is hard to lick. I have noticed some ferrets tend to use their canines to jiggle the metal ball in some water bottle spouts, and others seem to almost chew the tip. This should cause some sort of wear to the teeth. I noticed in a small number of ferret skeletons some wear on the inside tips of the lower canines. It is possible this wear is a result of metal abrasion while obtaining water from a metal-tipped bottle, but I cannot document the wear to that specific causative agent. What I have noticed is that many ferrets with worn teeth tend to prefer to drink from bowls rather that a water bottle. It may be that this preference is due to some type of discomfort when worn teeth come into contact with the metal spout. Q: Ferrets have such a short digestive tract, wouldn't feeding them even semi-moistened food decrease the vitamin absorbtion? A: G.I. don t know...I guess, but only if they lose tract of time. If anything, the opposite would be true, based on the premise that water-soluble vitamins would dissolve better and would therefore have a better chance of being absorbed. It takes a while for a dehydrated food to be rehydrated, and you can bet your buttons that kibble is a dehydrated food. The sooner the food is rehydrated, the sooner it can be absorbed. Moistening it would probably be of benefit. Q: ...One of my oldies had his teeth cleaned in 09-03 and now once again he has to get them cleaned in 5-04. Any ideas as to why this particular ferret has this--when none of the others of my formerly large group? A: Is this the formerly large group artists known as Paw-Printz? I don t have enough information to be able to answer this question, so I ll answer it generally. Dozens, maybe hundreds of different factors influence the mineralization of plaque into tartar. Things like medications, diet, bacterial flora, immune response, chewing, non-related disease, and even salivary gland output can have a marked influence on the rate of deposition and mineralization of plaque. One of my ferrets, the late G.W. produced tartar like it was going out of style and had to have his teeth cleaned twice a year. Tui only needed his teeth cleaned twice, and both times were after he was ill. Ferrets are individuals, and while you can make extremely accurate statistical predictions about populations, individuals may or may not adhere to those forecasts. You simply have to adapt your dental regime to each individual ferret. Q: I'm not sure if I understood the anthropology correctly, but did you say that dental problems arose after polecats became obligate carnivores? If so, what did they eat before then? A: Never underestimate the amount of confusion I can bestow. I think you misunderstood or I didn t explain it well enough. Polecats have been primary, obligate carnivores for millions of years. Because they subsisted on a diet of small animals covered with fur and feather, containing tough, fibrous tissues and hard bones, their teeth were cleaned and polished with each meal. My hypothesis is that during this long period of pronounced carnivory, some unknown number of physiological mechanisms that help keep teeth clean were lost (or never evolved), simply because they were unnecessary. In the wild, this has little impact of polecats because they eat a diet that cleans their teeth for them, but in ferrets, that is not the case. Pet ferrets do not have a diet that mechanically scrubs their teeth, so they suffer from dental calculus and periodontal disease. [Posted in FML issue 4526]