Regarding the watery stools after switching to EVO, then taking ferret off EVO . It isn't that there is TOO MUCH protein in EVO, rather there is more CORRECT protein TYPES in EVO. Ferrets really should NOT be expelling mounds and mounds of thick, tootsie roll sized excretia. Yes, this is touted as being "normal" in many of the ferret care guide books - but its based upon a diet that ferrets really shouldn't be eating. Don't try to turn this into a kibble vs. natural food debate - its not going to be. From the common sense perspective the more dry matter, indigestible products going IN to the ferret, the more dry matter, indigestible comes out - hence when you feed kibble full of grains, by products, vegetable derivatives, additives, and such- well that's what ends up coming out.Crap in -crap out. Couple that with the fact the ferret has to eat three or four times the quantity just to get his nutritional needs met- well it doesn't take a genius to see what contributes to the piles o poop in the pan! Years of constantly feeding poor quality kibble is why the ferret care books always say to keep food in front of your ferret all the time. But day after day of all this dry indigestible gunk is NOT healthy for the ferret! Anytime a food product is changed the animal's gut bacteria get a slap in the face and the gut's environment changes - hence the change in the stool. More animal protein sources in EVO and some other high end grain free kibbles will often cause stools to darken and loosen. This change is NOT a reason to be discouraged from feeding your ferret a better kibble! Give the ferret's guts two to three weeks to adjust to the new food products and the stool should firm up a bit and the new odor will minimize. It is HIGHLY recommended to not feed just ONE kibble source- in other words feed a minimum of three different types and don't feed until completely gone. Refill your mix container when you have about a week left, that way as the new product gets mixed with the older your ferret's guts won't experience another slap in the face and the deposits will remain stable. I have never received a response to my inquiry as to whether EVO (and some other mfrs) create their product according to a specific recipe- or according to the market value of the ingredients. A recipe would ensure that ingredient quantities are ALWAYS the same from batch to batch, where as a market value end product will have widely varying ingredients even though the end product may fall within their "Guaranteed Analysis" and this would mean differences in batches and cause dietary changes for the ferret's innards. My suspicion is that they use market values - as this is usually more cost effective. I only know of one horse feed manufacturer that produces their feed according to recipe and my experience is that this practice offers the most consistent quality as well as palatability. For my one remaining kibble cruncher in my crew of 10, Da Vinci, he gets a mixture now of Evo Cat Fish, Evo Cat Poultry, and Evo Red Bites (for small dogs). According to their ingredients this gives him proteins from fish, fowl and ungulate sources - basically covering all bases. I was using Wellness CORE Cat grain free - until my EVO supplier started offering the EVO fish. - Now I don't have to trek to different places to get the kibble. There are a few natural fed ferrets that like to take the kibble from DaVinci's bowl and stash it. They don't eat it, but they like to save it for a rainy day and in a flash DaVinci's bowl gets emptied. So I've prevented them from doing this by simply feeding DaVinci twice a day like the natural fed ferrets are. He gets fed separately from them but is quite happy to chow down just twice a day. DaVinci came to me weighing 28 ounces (and being "free fed") and now he weighs 39 ounces- so obviously the twice a day kibble feedings are more than adequate. The much higher quality of kibble offered DaVinci improved hair coat, more energy, almost a pound of added flesh and yes - a definitive change in his stools from the play-doh consistency of the vet prescribed diet of before, to his cu\rrent grain free, animal protein, higher fat content of his current diet. These three bags of kibble yield 6.4 lbs of kibble. It gets poured into a Rubbermaid container and mixed well. I write the date of purchase/ mix on the lid and store the container in fridge. 6.4 pounds (102.4 ounces) will last one ferret, fed twice a day, just over 2 months (64 days). This means he's eating just about 2 ounces by weight per day. Volume wise that's about a third of a cup per day. His deposits are always easiest to spot, because even though his kibbles are grain free, they still have plenty of indigestible binders as ingredients and this means his deposits are larger and more tubular than any of my natural feeders. Please allow your ferret to remain on the Evo, and offer more than one type; let his gut environment sort itself out and you will be amazed at the improvement you'll see. There is only one way to reduce the quantity and odor of the poop in that pan - and that is to feed a more completely digestible food source to the ferret... but that's fodder for another day. please visit: for ferret help and info: http://holisticferret.proboards80.com/index.cgi http://ferretopia.proboards51.com/index.cgi yahoo groups Natural Ferrets [Posted in FML 7022]