Hello, this is a response to Heather Jane Bilicki's question, "Will her ferret starve his/herself?" I can confidently say, "NO." Ferrets like most animals (except people) eat to satisfy their nutritional requirement. I am a technician at a clinic here in Athens, GA, I have owned a ferret for a little over a year, and I work at the UGA Vet-School in the Reading Room and in the Clinical Immunology and Infectious Disease Lab, (my point?) I try to take advantage of every chance I get to readup on ferrets. One night at the Reading Room, I read about a study done on ferret nutrition. The study allowed different ferrets to eat for a set amount of time and then have no food the rest of the day. Some ferrets were allowed to eat all day. Point is, the ferrets all ate the same amount of food. The ones who ate free-choice ate small amounts throughout the day. The ones who only were allowed access to food once a day for a few minutes ate the same amount but ate as fast as they could. OK--MY point!!!! Each of the ferrets in the study were meeting their nutritional requirements. So, I do not think your ferret will starve him/herself. If you have any addition questions about Ferret health, please feel free to write me. Take care Bye for now Lance McLeroy [Posted in FML issue 1101]