From:
bill and diane killian - zen and the art of ferrets
Date: 2001-03-22 22:16:00 UTC
Subject: Re: [Ferret-Health-list] Yoghurt is GOOOOOOD!
<killian@zenferret.com>
On Thu, 22 Mar 2001, Edward Lipinski wrote:
> Ferret food passage is quite rapid. And rapid passage of food is not
> particularly benefical to the health of the ferret
This is somewhat debatable. It's what ferrets evolved with as polecats.
If it wasn't beneficial to a predator it would likely have evolved
differently.
Now it can pass through too quickly which is sometimes noted by that
greenish cast from some of the digestive juices if I recall.
> The other factor in ferret nutrition that I've found highly beneficial to
> the ferret is to increase the surface area of all foods the ferrets eat.
Increasing the sruface area of a food also increases the amount that a
food can spoil. Meat in particular spoils from the outside in so the
smaller or more irregularly cut a meat is the faster it completely spoils.
Not that that is important either in this forum.
> Someone on this list equated 1 month of a ferret's life to 1 year
> human's; hence a 1-year old ferret is equivalent to12 years human. Well,
> we have a little female ferret her by name of 'BOUSNO-ichi' who was born
> on April 4th, 1989. Her current 'ferret' age is 12 years or 144 months.
> Her equivalent human age is
> 144 years!
Age comparisons like that should not be taken to extremes. Ferrets live
their lives and humans theirs. With the importance of seasons in all
living beings (outside the tropics and deep sea) you really can't compare
years to other units.
A one year old ferret is fully muture in all ways. Though some growth
still occurs in bones and such. A twelve year old human is not fully
developed sexually. The human reaches his peak development at about 20
years of age while ferrets do at about that one year point.
But obviously you can not compare one human year to 20 ferret years as
that would make most of our ferrets now well over "100".
> Come to think of it, would yoghurt-fed ferrets never develop ECE?
> Hmmmm. I wonder?
Yogurt does not prevent ECE. ECE comes from a virus as we learned here it
wonderful detail (thank you Dr. Williams) General health will help
animals fight off infections but no one food is a miracle cure
against ECE. No ferret at our home ever got ECE. But I don't think
Totally Ferret and before that Iams Cat food prevents ECE.
> BOUSNO-ichi's name is her breed name in so far that her daddy was a
> silver mitt named 'BOUSAM-san' and her mommy was an albino named 'Snow'.
> Individual ferrets in a given litter are sufix enumerated in the Japanese
> language rather than English. This nomenclaturing based on the F1
> generation helps prevent in-breeding husbandry and certainly plays a
> significant role in breeding and producing healthy ferrets.
Naming schemes don't play a significant role in producing healthy ferrets.
Though we prefer detailed records - we use actually Family Tree Maker
which was intended as a human geneological program because it is
easier to use that the animal breeding programs we have found so far. A
few other ferret breeders have started using it as well.
I do look forard to Dr. Willard explaing what his years of education and
research have taught him. He has a well deserved great reputation.