Mike writes: >The first 3 ingredients are Chicken meal, Sweet potatoes, Peas, The >last I knew Sweet Potatoes and Peas are not meat, they are vegetables >and ferrets can not digest vegitables. Actually, no one knows for sure to what degree domesticated ferrets can or can not digest vegetable matter types. Certainly, some degree of digestion happens. They obviously must have animal tissues as their main protein source, still. This is a topic where just recently a lot was discovered with domestic dogs vs. wolves. It turns out that dogs even have a good number BOTH of genetic changes and intestinal microbiota changes compared to wolves which allow improved utilization of plant food sources. Parts of those are thought to be due to close association with humans (changes in the intestinal flora) and selective pressures of living with humans for such a long time (genetic changes). There is a hypothesis that to varying extents -- depending on the interplay of multiple factors like length of domestication, degree of change in diet over time (as in are the animals still hunting regularly and were their recent ancestors, what has been the primary diet both recently and for generations, etc), how genetically flexible that particular species is, etc.-- that many domesticated species may be functionally much more omnivorous than their ancestors and that therefore making dietary suppositions based on ancestry has some weaknesses that must be taken into account. Sukie (not a vet) Ferrets make the world a game. Recommended ferret health links: http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/ferrethealth/ http://ferrethealth.org/archive/ http://www.miamiferret.org/ http://www.ferrethealth.msu.edu/ 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) A nation is as free as the least within it. [Posted in FML 7869]