This website: http://www.provet.co.uk/petfacts/healthtips/vegetarianism.htm talks about pets and vegetarianism, and it says that ferrets are omnivores. Below is the email I sent them and the email they sent me in return. If you want to contact them, there's info on the webpage. ======== To whom it may concern, I was looking at the following link - http://www.provet.co.uk/petfacts/healthtips/vegetarianism.htm - about pets and vegetarianism, and I noticed that ferrets are listed as being omnivores. This is not true. Ferrets lack a cecum, so they are anatomically unable to digest vegetable matter. They also cannot digest fruits. Fruits and veggies have no nutritional value for ferrets, and they get their nutrition from animal proteins and fats. Ferrets are obligate carnivores, not omnivores. You can read more about this at the following links: http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?cls=11&cat=1296&articleid=573 http://www.ferret-universe.com/care/food.asp http://www.mdferretpaws.org/care/food_treats.html http://rawfedferrets.com/ I would appreciate it if you would change the information about ferrets that you have on your website so that new ferret owners do not think that feeding their ferrets fruit and veggies is correct. Thank you for your time, Kristen ============ The response: Kristen, Just to let you know that our investigations are ongoing regarding whether ferrets are strict carnivores or ominvores. We have found plenty of evidence that they do eat vegetable matter and that they can utilise it. The relatively short gastrointestinal tract of the ferret does not necessarily mean that it has to be a strict carnivore, apparently in the wild they eat roots at night and there are also papers looking at the metabolic pathways in ferrets and these suggest that they have adapted metabolically to be ominvores rather than strict carnivores. However, we are still conducting our research and I will get back to next week as to whether we agree that the wording on our website needs modifying. In the meantime many thanks for conatcting us with your concerns. We are anxious that the infromation we provide is accurate. Mike Davies Provet Limited [Posted in FML 5575]