From: <[log in to unmask]> >>Ferrets will kill just for the love of it. To them it is a most >>wonderful enterprise." (E. Lipinski) > >Ferrets do not kill for the love of it. Ferrets kill to survive. >That is all. Melanie Those that do not, cannot or would not feed live prey to their carnivorous predatory ferrets will NEVER see how in fact ferrets DO delight in the thrill of the kill! Ferrets MOST definitely will go on a killing spree beyond just killing for a meal! That was one of the things in their nature that made them so desirable before the advent of pesticides. Whereas a cat will hunt and kill a few times through the day, they do tend to play for long periods of time with one or two of their victims. Ferrets are tenacious, tireless and single minded in their business of killing. Ferrets will keep on killing until nothing moves. Ferrets are more efficient killing machines than even sharks - because a shark will kill for the meal being consumed at the moment. If the victim is large enough the shark will eat itself into a stupor. But it won't keep killing. A shark doesn't kill now so that it can eat later. Ferrets do. Ferrets on the other hand WILL, especially where rodents are concerned, kill and kill and kill and kill again. Never stopping to eat their victim until they are assured there are NO more potential victims! Ferrets will make a kill then stash, kill again and stash and repeat this process until they are absolutely certain there are no more potential victims. This is why ferrets were so desirable as rodent control on farms and in the cities especially, besides the fact they could get into places that cats couldn't - they just don't give up! Ferrets on the hunt have a singular purpose of mind: to find and eradicate their intended victim. They cannot be side tracked, discouraged nor swayed with offers of other forms of food unless that food happens to be another live victim! My ferrets ARE naturally fed and I often allow them the opportunity to exercise their innate hunting skills. I have started a very young kit on natural and live prey and I have "converted" 7 other kibble fed ferrets of various ages to the natural/whole/live prey diet and everyone of them exhibited this pure joy at killing. And it IS pure joy! Their tails will bristle and vibrate. They will begin endless chuckles and chortles. Their ears are alert, eyes are bright. After a successful kill and tucking away of the prey they zoom back to where they found their first victim and excitedly start all over again! The times when a ferret managed to gain entry into my feeder bin and breeding bins of mice, in mere moments she managed to kill several mice. Stacking them neatly in a corner of the bin to then turn and besiege another victim. She could have easily just killed one, then exited and devoured her meal, but instead she stayed happily in the bins until being discovered and extracted by me. Even still for many moments afterward she attempted to regain entry and could not be swayed from her intent even with the offering of one of her victims -- she knew there were more mice available for killing. This kind of killing goes beyond what is necessary for mere "survival" or the daily meal. Ferrets DO at least eat their entire victims, as long as they remember where they stashed them. Where as the "documented" killings by some cetaceans of other cetaceans and of primates killing other primates were for the sole purpose of consuming ONE portion of the victim's body: in the case of cetaceans; the tongue of the whale by Orcas and of the primates a monkey's brains by chimpanzees. The rest of the victim's body was left for other scavengers. Ferrets tend NOT to share their kills, nor leave them intentionally for others to devour. Regarding feeding "RAW": I DO offer my ferrets whole prey, live prey, raw food of all sorts and have been successful converting many kibble entrenched ferrets. I've noticed an incredible bloom in health (even for ferrets thought previously healthy on kibble) and even my vet has commented on their external healthy appearance, tone and weight - until I mention the ferrets ARE naturally fed, then I get a lecture on the so called dangers and hazards. I've done, and continue to do extensive research on nutrients and various foods offering them so my ferrets get a wide range of offerings. I raise my own mice now, so those too are raised on natural foods and I can see the health of those prey animals and know how they get dispatched and am assured they were neither stored improperly nor have endured dangerous freeze/thaw cycles. My ferrets don't get JUST raw meat - they get WHOLE prey and WHOLE raw meaty bones. It is SO important to know that feeding a "raw" diet goes far beyond just throwing them hunks of meat and expecting them to become healthy. Ferrets need to eat, yes eat, bones, sinew, skin, fur and cartilage besides meat. When they consume whole rodents the fur, claws and teeth although indigestible actually benefit the ferret. As these indigestible products get pushed through the intestines, the fur wraps around the shards of bone, teeth and claws gets twisted into a soft, pliable, thin rope that gently wipes through the intestines and is easily expelled. So many ferrets with "IBD and supposed "chicken allergies" are more likely suffering from severely abraded intestinal walls from the coarse grains, COOKED ground bones, chicken beaks, feet and ground feathers so common in most kibbles. I did my own scat dissection and comparison between a kibble meal and a mouse morsel here: http://www.putfile.com/album/122667 Feeding kibble is a choice made by the ferret caretaker that imposes a human's ideology of what is healthy for the ferret. Given a choice from birth a ferret will choose a natural whole prey diet. Given a choice after being converted all my ferrets choose their natural foods over kibble offerings. Given the choice to eat a raw or already dispatched meal my ferrets will all happily choose to kill their own and they don't stop killing until they realize there aren't any more mice to kill. Cheers, Kim [Posted in FML 6223]