Hi Everybody! Ferrets NorthWest FNW has returned to cyberspace after a long time away on business other than M. putorius furo. Like M. vison, the mink. In reply to raw egg querry of 030297 from addressee, now hear this! (That's Navy lingo, for you landlubbers.) FNW has included in its home-made LUMPS ferret food at least 5 eggs a day (plus a lot of other foods) to feed some 20 to 40 ferrets daily. The eggs are cooked however, to the point where the non-yolk part, becomes white and turgid, and hopefully, long enough to decimate populations of Salmonella sp. bacteria, characteristically present in some raw eggs. Cooking the egg "poached" - the albumin portion turning white, hence the name, "egg white," - apparently destroys the chemical affinity AVADIN has for BIOTIN, especially in the ferret's digestive and assimilative processes. Thus, the AVIDIN + BIOTIN cannot bond biochemically if the AVIDIN is destroyed by heat (cooking). This is good for the little dookers, because were the AVIDIN chemical bonding not destroyed, its bonding with BIOTIN (always present in the ferret's system in trace amounts) would form a complex mixture (AVIDIN + BIOTIN) that the ferret cannot utilize. Since the A + B mix is not assimilated by the ferret, it is excreted as waste. So, it effect, what happens at the other end is that the ferret's system is essentially purged of BIOTIN, a compound that is referred to as vitamin H. BIOTIN is vital to a ferret's good health. According to Tabers, BIOTIN is the most powerful life substance known and a great stimulator. It is active in concentrations of 1 part/400 billion parts. The next time you pick up a bottle of Ferretone, note that one of the substances in Ferretone is BIOTIN @ 13 micrograms per 4 milliliters. This is one of the reasons why Ferretone is vastly superior to Linnatone for ferrets. Lastly, FNW has never known a case of Epizootic Catarrhal Enteritis, ECE, or the green slime, as it is sometimes called. With approximately 2,000 ferrets having passed through FNW since 1981, all of them fed our home-made LUMPS ferret food from the day they come in or are born here to the day they are adopted or loaned, not one case of ECE has been encountered. We must be doing something right, although I haven't a good idea of what it is! I sure do wonder if it's our home-made LUMPS ferret food we make. The current speculation seems to point to an elusive "virus of short duration, as far as detectability is concerned, yet an "infected" ferret seems capable of transmitting the "virus" for a prolonged period following initial infection, "cure," and the lack of symptoms thereafter. Yet I know of cases wherein one ferret displaying symptoms of ECE in a business of ferrets has NOT infected its cage mates. Such happenings seem to cast doubt on the existence of a virulent "virus" and its infection rate of healthy (well nourished) ferrets. This is pure speculation on my part, but from my experience, the thought has entered my noggin that ECE has more to do with nutrition than a "virus." Sometimes I sure feel a tinge of saddness for all those folks out there buying up all that expensive ferret chow, when the old farmer has ferrets just as healthy or healthier and who feeds his ferrets what could be called "natural carnivore foods." Disease has at least two basic origins: a causitive organism and/or a lack of health. Sometimes the causitive organism is latent until the carrier host becomes malnourished. Then the causitive organism reproduces huge populations and we see the symptoms produced. A good example is coccidiosis. I wonder if ECE could have the same etiology? If it does, could we call it the Lipinski Syndrome? Ah, fame at last, and all based on ferret s..t! [Posted in FML issue 1868]