Reference of the day: Patricia P. Scott "The special features of nutrition of cats, with observations on wild Felidae nutrition in the London Zoo." 1968 Symposia of the Zoological Society of London, No. 21, "Comparative Nutrition of Wild Animals," edited by M. A. Crawford, published by the Zoological Society of London. Ok, this is the second paper I've offered that isn't really about ferrets; in this case, it is primarily concerned with wild cats, such as lions and tigers. Still, I fell the use is permitted because we ready use cat foods to feed our beasties, and because both cats and ferrets are extreme carnivores, with ferrets probably being the more carnivorous of the two. So even though the paper is primarily comcerned with cats, the lessons can easily be applied to ferrets (To save space and extreme boredom, I'm not going to argue the relationship is homologous rather than analogous one, but it is, so the comparison is very powerful). The paper has several goals, the most obvious is the communication of the basic nutritional requirements of cats [read extreme carnivores]. Both the importance and dangers of feeding an all-meat diet are explained. For example, an all-meat diet lacks the nutrients found in the other organs of the body, consumed by the predator, including internal organs and skeletal tissues. The all-meat diet therefore lacks vitamins and minerals neccessary for the health and well being of the carnivore. Of particular interest is the discussion of vitamins and calcium in the diet. Supporting evidence includes X-rays of different individuals fed diets that vary in calcium content. (For those of you that remember, I once pointed out my ferrets have very dense bone, a suprise to my vet, which I attribute to allowing them to eat cooked bone. The X-rays on p. 29 of the paper illustrates the difference between the bones of my ferrets and most others.) For those of you wanting to know more of the basic nutritional requirements of carnivores, this is a good start. It is not very technical, and offers evidence for most of the statements. Although dated somewhat, the basic generalizations are still true. Granted the paper does not address ferrets, and undoubtably there are differences, but the basic background is the same and if anything, the ferret has even more stringent requirements. At a later date, I will offer a reference specific to ferrets, but expect a more difficult read. Mo' Bob and the 18 Bone Busting Beauties (In memory of Gus) [Posted in FML issue 1735]