I've been having a problem concerning food that I thought maybe someone here could help me out with. Here's the problem: A few months ago, we adopted (actually, rescued is more like it) our third ferret, a very sweet albino female, from a friend of my sister's sister-in-law. He didn't take very good care of her at all. For instance, in the two years or so he had her, he'd never had her get distemper/rabies shots, never given her a bath, never clipped her claws, very rarely let her out of her cage (and the cage was just one of those small travel cages), and he'd never even heard of ferretone/linatone. Her coat was in awful condition (dry, coarse and sparse) and she practically limped from lack of exercise, but since we've had her she's made great improvements in these areas. We also got her up to date on her shots. One problem still exists, though. He was feeding her whatever store brand he could find cheap. Therefore, she refuses to even touch the Science Diet and Iams kitten foods we have for our other two ferrets, even if it means she goes hungry. I finally broke down and bought a few store brands to try and get her to eat something. She's currently eating Purina One most of the time, with Friskies flavors and Friskies kitten food thrown in on occasion when she gets bored with the Purina One. My vet says that store brands aren't good for them at all, because of being mostly vegetable protein instead of animal protein. (Also, they have excesses of vitamins and minerals, if I understood correctly.) To compound the problem, one of our other two ferrets has started to eat a lot of the Purina and Friskies, too, and it seems to be having an effect on her coat. (It's just not as healthy as it used to look, and the underside of her tail is getting sparse.) The vet recommended we try Nature's Recipe as an alternative, but unfortunately neither one wants anything to do with it. Anyway, I was wondering if anyone has any suggestions for alternatives to Science Diet/Iams/Nature's Recipe. I know I probably won't find anything that's nearly as good nutritionally, but I thought I could try to find something relatively decent, or at least not harmful to them. Any advice? Thanks in advance! -- Lynn-Anne Friese [log in to unmask] [Posted in FML issue 0411]