Re: 8-in-1 recalls DINGO CHICKEN JERKY ferret treats >It was bound to happen! Here is the first FERRET recall: > <http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20070331005008> These treats have the potential of having salmonella in them. Now, salmonella has often come up in discussions of raw foods because it is *one* of a number of infectious bacteria that can be gotten from raw foods. In fact, it is extremely common in poultry and eggs. On the other hand -- unlike some of the other bacteria that can be gotten from raw foods (partial list under signature) -- salmonella does not usually take off in ferrets. When it does take off, though, it is a horrible disease, but, again, usually it does not. So, basically, I'd personally throw the treats because I don't see any reason to take the chance, and if anyone has a compromised ferret then I think that tossing the treats away especially makes perfect sense, but people who are feeding raw poultry or raw eggs probably already have ferrets whose bodies having been dealing with salmonella and they might choose a different course, depending on their own decisions. You may ask why poultry and eggs are not always on recalls given the extremely high levels of salmonella present. BEGIN QUOTE Another study that cultured 10 raw meat diets based on chicken determined 8 diets (80%) to be contaminated with Salmonella spp. END QUOTE from http://www.fda.gov/cvm/Guidance/Guide122.pdf and elsewhere similar Salmonella rates are found, but Salmonella is not the most commonly found food borne pathogen, nor is it the most serious. The reason you don't see recalls of chickens and eggs for run of the mill salmonella content is because it is assumed that they will be cooked for human consumption so they are not recalled, but notice that people are carefully instructed to do things like not use the same cutting boards for those and foods that are eaten raw, and to wash the cutting boards well. In an already cooked food, though, there is not an assumption that cooking will later take place. The treats are meant to be given "as is" so they DO get recalled. BTW, throwing those treats in the freezers won't work to destroy the salmonella in them anymore than it does for poultry. The studies where freezing actually did kill salmonella involved temperatures from -20'C to -80'C (-4'F to -112'F) depending on the type of food -- with dairy having the higher temps compared to meats/poultry in the studies I have seen, and that home freezers and most grocery freezers don't permit temperatures that low. Sukie (not a vet) Current FHL address: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ferrethealth Recommended ferret health links: http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/ferrethealth/ http://ferrethealth.org/archive/ http://www.afip.org/ferrets/index.html http://www.miamiferret.org/fhc/ http://www.ferretcongress.org/ http://www.trifl.org/index.shtml http://homepage.mac.com/sukie/sukiesferretlinks.html * According to _Biology and Diseases of the Ferret_ these diseases come from raw meat AND are documented in ferrets: pages 321-322, actinomycosis pages 322-323, botulism pages 324-327, campylobacteriosis pages 339-342, salmonellosis pages 343-347, mycobacteria Others, including Jerry Murray and some journal abstracts in PubMed, also mention E. coli, some strains of which are very antibiotic resistant There are a range of potential food infections, including some parasites (not listed here) so if interested in those, please, further check resources just as you would for any other aspect, pro or con, about feeding any type of diet. [Posted in FML 5565]