[Sent in 2 parts, combined.] Why am I sure that Danee understood perfectly, despite what Kim hypothesized about Danee in her post? Here are the reasons: 1. Danee has worked with ferrets and ferret experts for a very long time. She is not an instant "expert" with just a few years under her belt. 2. Danee is alway open to learning including listening to things even if she finds herself questioning them or disagreeing with the conclusions and as a result she presents them as they were themselves presented. That is a precious and too rare quality; too many other people only hear what they want to hear and then burp back what they want to have been said, sometimes accurately and sometimes not accurately. 3. She realizes that information changes over time, and that much of what appears is incomplete enough that drawing conclusions from just one source or viewpoint is risky until a large amount of well challenged data is in from multiple experts, while drawing conclusions from one source through a filter of strong personal preferences is about as risky as anything can get while still treating itself as a resource, sometimes even as risky as people who are profiting from saying just whatever suits their wallets or their notoriety. 4. Not only does Danee have a lot of years behind her but she is an established and respected breeder who has a long time observing many ferrets. 5. Danee does not alter what she reports about her own ferrets to serve an argument. She gets the information right and then she presents it. If the vets add more info she presents that but she never alters it to try to place "winning" a discussion before being factual. That, too, is sometimes a rare quality, especially in food discussions where people too conveniently find it easy to alter what they wrote in earlier posts because they figure people won't look. Luckily, those posts can be found in the archives. In archives it will be seen both that everyone learns and everyone forgets a bit, but also that some people either misremember a lot or alter a lot to suit their arguments even just a year or two apart for the posts. 6. Danee never treats food like religion and she is not intolerant of the choices of others, knowing that there simply are others will reach different but also valid conclusions than hers when a situation -- including food choices -- is one where there is not a clear optimal choice for most families. Since Danee accepts that people can reach different conclusions about foods after learning I bet she also is accepting of people's other personal choices. Food is not religion; nor is it superstition; nor is it mystical or magical; nor is there only one good answer. Just a comment here: food missionaries scare me; I'd personally rather people read factual articles on a variety of choices -- being open to negatives as well as positives -- and then decided for themselves instead of feeling that they have to go along with any bully or with any fashion within any group. Accuracy is not a popularity vote type of thing. So, I trust what Danee wrote to accurately represent the presentation. She and I sometimes differ in our own choices and conclusions but when we do it is known that each of us read the data on each side and simply differently weighed things that are still not well enough studied. That is perfectly acceptable and so are different conclusions in such situations. So, people, learn from all sides and trust yourselves and your knowledgeable vets for decisions. No one has a right to bully you into being a follower though some will try. It is important to observe a few well documented pieces of food info. These include but are not limited to: 1. The risk of infection is greater with raw food, especially for ferrets who are health-compromised, but the most common cause of food poisoning (though certainly not the only one) is one that most healthy ferrets can resist getting: salmonella (though it is very hard to treat when they do get it). Obviously, there are other types of food infections, too, including some that produce toxins. In the past a few ferret foods have been connected to infection when the producers sprayed uncooked extra flavoring on the outside of the already cooked food. The major producers of ferret foods avoid that method now, I think, though people can check with whichever ones they buy to ask. The rate of infection exposure with kibble is much less than with raw flesh foods; one recent study of poultry in PA found salmonella in about 30% of the bird carcasses. Home cooked food that has not been exposed to raw food has the lowest salmonella rates. Not all food poisoning types can be eliminated by cooking but many can. To make home food people need to learn from reputable sources how to make a balanced diet. One resource is http://www.petdiets.com/ and even though ferrets are descended from the dog branch of carnivora the cat diet is closer to their needs. There is also a preparation guide for Bob's Gravy at the TriFL (Triangle Ferret Lovers) site. 2. Different types of food use teeth differently so the types of wear will differ, the development of muscles may differ, and if the food requires extreme chomping then well used muscle insertions and origins will cause greater build-ups of bone under them so even the skulls can differ. That's just a known factor among all mammals and the differences often mean nothing more than just being differences. In fact, in the Middle Ages people had more protuberant jaws in much of Europe because the food they ate caused them to eat more incisor against incisor food while these days human lower incisors typically rest just a little behind the upper ones. See where you place your teeth when you close your mouth. 3. Food choices need to be suited to the medical needs of the ferrets when they can affect health, so one with diabetes may benefit from fish oil and Brewers Yeast added to the diet, while one with kidney disease may benefit from fish oil and will benefit from reducing the phosphorous intake by doing things like substituting cooked eggs for some of the protein in the diet, etc. If a ferret is prone to calcium oxalate uroliths then the oxalate intake needs to be reduced, it seems (still under study). If the ferret is prone to cystine stones then four of the amino acids must be reduced, usually meaning that the diet will need to be 35% or less protein to avoid early death. 4. Different types of kibbles have different textures so some snap easily while others do not. I think that anyone who watched the recent Totally Ferret taste testing learned that when the people were pleasantly surprised at how well they broke apart easily. 5. Too much Vitamin D causes hypercalcemia in ferrets just as it does in dogs. This results in calcium deposits in organs. (Humans tend to need more D but have trouble with a lot of A. Ferrets, on the other hand, are descended from ancestors who ate livers pretty much each day so they handle Vitamin A well; in fact, one study found that high levels of Vitamin A protected ferrets against canine distemper and helped with actual recovery from infection by that disease, but that is another topic which is in the archives of both the FML and FHL. So, just know that perhaps many ferrets get less Vitamin A than might be optimal if there is a CDV exposure risk.) 6. Too much vegetable protein causes ferret urine to become alkaline. That can cause struvite urinary tract stones, the most common type encountered. A full urinary blockage can be fatal so never fool around if those happen. 7. Nutritional Steatitis can be caused by too much polyunsaturated fat or too little Vitamin E and is most often encountered when too much oily marine fish is fed. A few years back it was again encountered when a new FHL member had been using a cheap grocery store cat food. If I recall right that person also had struvite stones appear from the high vegetable protein content of the foods. 8. A form of rickets or probably pseudo-rickets (nutritional hyperparathyroidism) has been seen in ferrets who were getting too little calcium in their diets. They typically were fed too much flesh meat and too little of other nutrients, or were fed mostly very young chick or very young mice whose bones were still not very ossified. It can also happen to the kits of mother ferrets who do not get enough calcium and is sometimes called "swimmers disease" because of the swimming motions the kits make when trying to move. 9. Thiamine deficiency has been seen with ferrets who were fed raw egg whites or fed too much fish. 10. Zinc toxicity has been seen due to galvanized cages or dishes. 11. Mercury toxicity has been seen in some who had diets that were primarily chicken. It came from the mercury treated grain/corn fed to the chickens instead of being used -- as it should have been -- as seed for crop production. 12. Salted fish have caused salt poisoning in ferrets. On the subject of salt types, NuSalt in too high amounts has provided more potassium than is healthy for the heart so those providing that for ferrets taking diuretics have to be careful about dosing. Banana is a safer source for potassium for most of those ferrets. 13. Not all home provided diets are high enough in arginine, but that is a rare problem. Commercial diets are fine in that regard. 14. Cooking and food preparation pretty much "predigest food" in that they break it down some. This means that such foods are more easily digested and that also makes them better for compromised ferrets and for at least part of the diet of fast growing ones. The amounts of enzymes found in raw foods don't help with digestion because the stomach acid destroys them. BTW, this is a hot topic currently in human nutrition because it looks like processed foods DO result in the uptake not only of more of the other nutrients but also of nutrient energy sources (Calories) than their unprocessed ingredients would otherwise produce; in other words processed food can get you fatter faster. There are also postulations/hypotheses. One of these is that carbohydrates may cause an increased rate of cases of insulinoma. There also is plenty on this, both pro and con in the archives and the question will be open till a lot more is known. Anyway, I think that silly assessment of Danee's notes on that talk merely shows a lack of information about her abilities and background, something to be expected by someone who has only had a few years with ferrets. (Yes, people can learn a lot fast, but it takes much more time and an open mind to learn a REAL lot and especially from many perspectives; Danee has that characteristics and the invested time.) In the interest of full disclosure: we feed some quality kibbles and get hearty, happy good life spans from most, though we have a history of also taking in some with health strikes against them from the start and they and few others who get unlucky such as one with JL usually live shorter lives than most of our ferrets get, but not always shorter. Our experience with ferrets has been over a span of 30 years, and -- yes -- I do agree with people who find that ever since fancies began being "produced" in large numbers too many of the ferrets are less healthy and shorter lived, a problem that echoes that of many dog breeds and other domestic animals too often bred for appearance. So, make up your own minds after reading enough on each side and expect information to increase over time. Don't accept guilt from what others write just because they use different approaches than you use, and beware fashion for fashion's sake in everything except places where it can't hurt, like clothing styles. Sukie (not a vet) 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/ http://www.ferrethealth.msu.edu/ http://www.ferretcongress.org/ http://www.trifl.org/index.shtml http://homepage.mac.com/sukie/sukiesferretlinks.html all ferret topics: http://listserv.ferretmailinglist.org/archives/ferret-search.html "All hail the procrastinators for they shall rule the world tomorrow." (2010, Steve Crandall) On change for its own sake: "You can go really fast if you just jump off the cliff." (2010, Steve Crandall) [Posted in FML 6888]