Another possible origin of a taste for sweetness among ferrets is insect feeding by ancestors. It hit me today that I had run into a mention in the past which indicated that some insets are sweet, so I began to Google "insect recipes" +sweet figuring that might get the most rapid applicable sites. Along the way I ran into this safe trap for ants and roaches: http://www.curevents.com/vb/showthread.php?t=18401 by using a pan of thick sugar syrup or molasses to prevent escape, though I wonder if they would eat from the side and continue procreating making it counterproductive so I think that something larger with an inward turning lip like are on sweetened water wasp traps may be better than a regular pan. Okay, I have found mentions of some tasting like lobster (a type of grub), some being buttery ("bug larvae at Mono Lake"), and some being sweet (a type of grub, a gnat), June bugs braised in butter with no taste description ditto cicada fritters, but there are also bitter types of insects mentioned. Many cultures have insect recipes. Okay, here is a good resource and it mentions sweetness for some insects, so an insect component to the past diet could also be part of the attraction to sweetness for our mustelids. http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/2000/2160.html including >...Most American insect recipes are based on limited types of insects >easily purchased from supply companies, pet stores or bait shops... >Over 1,000 insect species are eaten by humans world wide. Not all >insects are edible. Some insects are toxic and may create allergy >problems. Use only species mentioned in this Entomology fact sheet... >Along with nutrition comes the added benefit of good taste. Doug >Whitman, Entomologist at Illinois State University, enjoys eating >raw yellowjacket larvae which have a sweet, nutty flavor. Gene R. >DeFoliart, retired Entomologist at the University of Wisconsin, >prefers the greater wax moth larvae (deep-fried will melt in your >mouth, tasting like bacon) and crickets deep-fried have a crunchy, >tangy flavor. http://www.ent.iastate.edu/misc/insectsasfood.html Anyway, it looks like this could also have been a possible origin for the attraction to sweets by ferrets. -- Sukie (not a vet, and not speaking for any of the below in my private posts) Recommended health resources to help ferrets and the people who love them: Ferret Health List http://www.smartgroups.com/groups/ferrethealth FHL Archives http://ferrethealth.org/archive/ AFIP Ferret Pathology http://www.afip.org/ferrets/index.html Miamiferrets http://www.miamiferret.org/fhc/ International Ferret Congress Critical References http://www.ferretcongress.org [Posted in FML issue 5250]