Food to feed my ferret

Question
QUESTION: Hello,

I wanted to know what food you would recommend to feed my ferret. There are so many foods and different information out there that I don't really know what to go by. Some say cat food, some say only premium ferret food, others say feed raw. I want to do whats best but this is all confusing me.

I'm still doing my research and I won't get a ferret until I understand their nutritional needs but I figured that this would be a good place to start.

ANSWER: Hello!  Thank you for being concerned about your future ferret's nutrition. There are so many well meaning owners who fail to do significant research and feed poor quality or even harmful products, so good for you!

There are several important things to look for when selecting a brand or brands of kibble.  It must contain high fat and protein content. Generally look for 35-40% protein (I have found any higher creates soft stool) and around 22% fat.  Every brand is different, and that is why I tend to choose 3 of the best, and create a mixture. For older ferrets, look for less protein, since it can cause stress on the kidneys.  Whichever brands you choose, make sure the first 3 ingredients are meat based and try to stay away from animal by-products since these are "filler" and contain less nutritional value.  Make sure there are no vegetable additives and minimal carbohydrates, since ferrets are obligate carnivores and cannot digest plant material.   If you decide to switch brands, always introduce the new type by mixing it in with the old kibble.  I generally start with a 20/80 mixture, then increase the amount of new food over the next few days.  This allows the sensitive ferret tummies to get used to the new diet.

Here are some brands I recommend:

Feline Wellness
Innova Kitten Chow (or the ferret version if available)
Totally Ferret (contains by-products, but should be ok if mixed)
Savannah Cat (Timberwolf brand)

This list is by no means all inclusive.  There are many other good types available, just check the labels. Not all premium kitten/cat kibble is good for these guys, and not even all brands of ferret-specific food!  I do not recommend feeding a raw diet.  Bacteria and other harmful pathogens and can be transferred by feeding raw meat.  These can include tapeworms, salmonella, and e-coli.

Also, just for reference, stay away from vegetables, fruits and milk products as treats.  Raisins can kill, and too much sugar (anything that ends with -ose) can lead to insulinoma and other complications. I feed my guys dehydrated 100% chicken treats with no additives as snacks.  These can be found in the canine section of your local pet store.   Always check the ingredients for whatever you buy, since most store bought brands are not good for the little guys!

There is a short FAQ that contains some info on nutrition from the AFA's Official Website:

http://www.ferret.org/read/faq.html

Good luck, and if you have any other questions, do not hesitate to ask

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Well thanks for trying to help me. In the past few days I've spent all my free time researching a ferrets nutritional requirements and what they should be eating. So while I appreciate your help I have to respectively disagree with some of your advice based on my research.

I'm not worried about loose stools and I have to think that their natural prey are highly packed with meat protein. I believe from my reading that the reason that it is hard on the kidney's is due to inadequate protein from plants.

I was looking at the brands you recommend and while they looked decent I think that it would be better to go with Wellness Core instead of Wellness and Innova Evo Feline and Ferret instead of Innova. I also refuse to feed Totally Ferret, those ingredients look very low quality. I also think that Wysongs Archetype 2 looks good. I joined a few forums and those seem to be the most highly recommend dry foods and I have to agree based on the ingredients.

I have mostly been looking into a raw diet and I do believe you are very very wrong on. There seems to be a very small small chance of a ferret getting sick from it and if you buy from high quality suppliers the risk is almost nil. Ferrets digestive systems are short and acidic designed for handling bacteria. Dry food proves more of a risk for contamination from bacteria and fungus that can be harmful to them than raw does. But really there seems to be more of a risk to the human than the ferret. They have evolved on that kind of diet containing mice, rats, chicks, insects and others. I think the risk of a ferret getting sick or not living to it's full life expectancy is increased on a dry diet.

I by no means am going to set up traps in my basement and catch rats or use road kill. But from respectable high end rodent suppliers or local butchers (chicken wings and necks) there isn't going to be a risk of tapeworms. So I really believe that the pros outweigh the cons by a ton.

So really I think I'm going to go with a raw whole diet for my ferret when I get him/her. I think it's going to be the healthiest. If you have any research that would prove why it would be a bad idea I would love to have it, I'm still learning about ferrets diets. But I do know about cats and dogs nutritional needs and I feed my cats and dogs raw. I hadn't really connected the two (yes I know stupid) to ferrets but know that I have I feel much more prepared and have a much better understanding.

Thanks for the idea on treats, some raw chicken would be great. I've learned how to check and dissect ingredients while learning about cat and dog food so I'll start doing that for ferret food and treats. I feel so silly for not connecting the two, especially because I do understand cats and dogs diet needs, things will be so much easier now.

Thanks again for your help.

Answer
Please be very careful.  I have spoken to most of the veterinarians in the clinic yesterday for their professional opinion of the matter. Each gave various reasons as to why it is a generally bad idea, and none of them supported it.  I'm not a doctor, but between my own research and the opinion of several personally known DVMs, I do put a word of caution on raw diets.     

Here is a discussion I had saved on my computer from a DVM forum that pretty much sums up my concerns.  It is canine based, but the general idea is the same.  I no longer have the link to the original site, but this was found long ago in my research when considering raw diets myself, before deciding against them.  

Raw Meat Diet discussion:

Question:  

We all know that canids have eaten raw meat for millions of years. I'm very interested in feeding my dog a diet based on raw meat.  Feeding raw chicken that's been processed at a plant is not the same as the animal killing it fresh, of course.  Nevertheless, I know many people who have been using raw diets for years, and I've seen great results in their dogs in terms of skin, teeth, reduction of allergies, and overall vitality.

The main objection of most vets to raw feeding is the potential danger for bacterial contamination.  We know that bacteria like salmonella and campylobacter are endemic, not only on meats but even in fruits and vegetables.  But the presence of bacteria doesn't necessarily correspond to a high risk of infection.  The raw feeders I know swear they've never had a problem with these bacteria.

I've already read the usual arguments against owner-prepared diets, and am making a separate study of the question of nutritional balance.  For the moment, I'm concerned solely with the question of whether there is in fact a real risk of *significant* bacterial problems (higher than the average dog eating kibble plus the usual "found" items like cat poop, the occasional dead rodent, etc.).

Can you provide any hard evidence that feeding raw, human-grade meat, properly handled, measurably increases the risk of salmonella/campylobacter infection in dogs?  All I've seen on both sides of this question is opinion, generalization, and anecdote.

--Are there any veterinary studies about the effects of salmonella/campylobacter in dogs?  e.g. statistics about incidence of salmonella/campylobacter overall?

--Are there any confirmed cases that animals fed raw diets suffered from these bacteria?  If so, how severe was the problem?

--Do animals ever get these bacteria from cooked sources (i.e. processed foods)?

--Do animals in the wild suffer from bacteria like salmonella?

Your help in this area would be greatly appreciated!


Answer by Mike Richards, DVM:

I will try to answer some of your questions and to point out the ones that probably do not have verifiable answers. In addition, you may wish to search the PubMed database located at the following address, as it contains a great number of references on Salmonella, Campylobacter, toxoplasmosis and other food borne infections.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PubMed/medline.html

I see little to no value in an argument such as "we all know canids have eaten raw meat for millions of years". If pet owners were willing to accept mortality rates similar to wild canines for their pets there would be a lot fewer long term disorders of any type, not just food related ones. The average lifespan of a wild canid is very short compared to that of a pet dog and the same is true of feral felines. We deal with many of the problems of aging in pets because of the success of pet foods and improved health care. They don't live in a natural situation and for the most part they are probably better off because of that.

I am not sure that the main objection among veterinarians to raw meat is simply bacterial infections. Toxoplasmosis occurs in approximately 1 percent of the beef sold in the United States, making parasitic infections a significant concern as well. Other parasitic infections are also possible.

In answer to the anecdotal evidence of no disease from owners feeding their pets raw meat, I would like to offer one illustration of the problems with this type of evidence based on practice experience. On at least a hundred occasions I have used a flea comb to find live fleas on pets whose owners swore they had no flea problem since starting "x" or "y" flea preventative diet, such as garlic, brewer's yeast, Lyfe (TM), etc. Most of these people left my office totally unconvinced of the failure of the product mentioned because they wanted to believe in it. They weren't looking for a problem and they didn't want to see a problem, so they just didn't acknowledge it. Surely you encounter similar situations in researching historical events.

I think the major problem with owner prepared diets is an attempt to satisfy the needs of pets by making one recipe and not varying it. I strongly suspect that if pets were fed a variety of foods that approximates the food triangle suggested for humans that an adequate diet would be obtained. On the other hand, trying to formulate a single recipe that meets the needs of pets long term is very very difficult to do. I do not know about other vets but I think that the major reason to stick with pet foods is the incredible ability of pets to train their owners to feed them unbalanced and/or unhealthy diets. A great many of the pets I see who are fed primarily home-made diets or table scraps eat only a few items consistently. Feeding pet foods helps avoid this problem. I am not particularly uncomfortable with the notion of people feeding a variety of foods in an attempt to meet dietary requirements as long as they are aware of the pitfalls and avoid them.

Food poisoning cases are not identified in pets as often as they are in humans, primarily because the labwork is expensive to pursue and epidemiological resources similar to those in human medicine are not there for veterinarians. There is a great deal of evidence to show that these infections do affect dogs and cats. Please check the PubMed site and search under Salmonella or Campylobacter or Toxoplasmosis or E. coli to find some of the references to this. There are some studies outlining how Salmonella affects dogs in these references but most are concerned with transmission methods. Any good veterinary internal medicine textbook will provide details as to the clinical signs of disease from organisms that can be transmitted through raw meat. These are taken from The Handbook of Small Animal Practice by Dr. Rhea Morgan:

campylobacteriosis : vomiting, hemorrhagic or watery diarrhea, fever, clinical course of 5 to 15 days, may be a complicating factor in parvovirus infections, asymptomatic carrier state is common

salmonellosis: vomiting and/or diarrhea, fever, lethargy, abdominal pain. In some instances, abortion or central nervous system signs or death

E. coli: currently considered to be less of a problem in pets than in humans. Similar signs to salmonellosis (from R. Remillard on the Veterinary Information Network, 1-800-700-4636).

Cryptosporidiosis: (protozoan), primarily affects cats, causes diarrhea, weight loss, loss of appetite, dehydration. May be a cause of inflammatory bowel disease in dogs.

Toxoplasmosis: (protozoan), stillbirth, abortion, severe systemic illness in newborns, fever, eye damage, muscle pain, depression, weight loss, poor appetite, cough, respiratory distress, seizures or other CNS signs.

Evidence for the risk of feeding raw human-grade meat must be inferred from studies in humans because of the inability to track animal cases. There are numerous cases of well defined, well tracked food poisonings from raw or undercooked meat in the U.S. Perhaps pets are less susceptible to infection from these meat sources but that is not really very likely. If several people die from undercooked hamburgers in Wisconsin, it is pretty likely that a pet or two was affected as well.

There are no tracking agencies for diseases in pets. It is unlikely that statistics exist for overall infection rates for campylobacter, salmonella or almost any other disease. Without widespread pet insurance and in the absence of a CDC or similar program in veterinary medicine it will be a long time before valid statistics become available.

There are a number of confirmed cases of salmonella suspected to have originated in raw meat in dogs. There have been studies done on greyhounds due to the suspicion that a condition known as "Alabama rot" or cutaneous and renal glomerular vasculopathy is caused by a strain of E. coli which is suspected to be linked to the prevalence of raw meat diets among racing greyhounds.

Yes, pets do get exposed to Salmonella and possibly other pathogens when pet foods are contaminated by poor handling, rat or mouse feces or addition of contaminated foods to the diet. There have been reported cases of this happening in pets but I was unable to find specific references -- although I am sure it can be done.

Wild animals do suffer from salmonellosis, toxoplasmosis, campylobacter and other illnesses. There have been documented cases in a number of species and there have been cases of human exposure after eating or contacting many species, including at least one case of salmonella food poisoning after eating a rattlesnake (it is in the list of references under Salmonella in the PubMed database but I can't remember the exact reference). I have treated wildlife for a number of years in association with WildCare, Inc. and have seen food poisoning on a number of occasions, some of them confirmed through lab testing or necropsy exam. People seem to believe that wild animals live a long and carefree existence and nothing could be further from the truth. They are heavily parasitized in many instances, suffer from nutritional deficiencies on a regular basis and often die very young. I do not know the specific reference but from memory I think the average lifespan of foxes studied in one study was 9 months. This is a far cry from the lifespan we expect from our pets.

When I started in practice 19 years ago it was unusual to treat a 20 year old cat. I have at least ten feline patients over the age of twenty and at least two dogs in that age range in my practice. This is probably due in no small part to nutritional improvements which came about primarily through the feeding of well formulated and safely preserved pet foods. While that does not directly address the feeding of raw meat diets it is hard for me to understand why pet foods are knocked by some people who favor the diets that were prevalent when dogs lived closer to ten or twelve years and a fourteen year-old cat was thought to be ancient.

Please think this through very carefully. Ask your vet if you can read through his or her textbooks and then look up the references cited in them if you want to really research this subject.

There may be benefits from feeding raw meat. Like everything else, you have to weigh the risks against the benefits. Like most issues in veterinary medicine it isn't possible to find hard figures to base your assessment on. There are definite risks. Are you sure of the benefits?

People ate raw meat for a long time (and still do, sometimes with no problems) but I'm not going to take chances with this, personally.

Mike Richards, DVM

I hope this has proven to be a sufficient answer. I could find more if i search through the DVM databases i have access to.  

I did indeed mean Feline Core Wellness and Innova Evo in my list of possible kibbled foods.  There is a ferret specific version for Innova Evo, and that is the best if available.  Totally Ferret is the more mediocre in quality, but it is the best of the ferret brands available besides the Innova Ferret which is nearly impossible to find.    

I truly hope that this information has helped.  Good luck!

- Cindy P.
E.R. Vet Technician