From:
Melissa Litwicki
Date: 2001-11-08 13:47:00 UTC
Subject: Re: Re: New ferret - need help and advice!
> From: "Steph" <rumtum99@s...>
> Subject: Re: Re: New ferret - need help and advice!
>
> Hi,
> A ferret of one of my friend's tested positive for e-coli and was
> quite sick. This ferret was fed a commercial food, so I am not sure
> where she got it, but ferrets can get e-coli.
Ah, I did say "unlikely", but clearly it's possible. You can deep-freeze
meat for a period of time in order to kill some parasites; you can give it
a grapefruit seed extract or a dilute food-grade hydrogen peroxide bath to
kill some microorganisms, but I don't know how easy to find those two
products are. I settle for thoroughly cleaning hands, cutting board,
bowls, and surfaces before I start working with raw meat, and giving the
meat I'm about to use a thorough clean water rinse before chopping it up.
I buy the meat the day I am going to prepare it, and immediately freeze
what I'm not using. The resulting raw mix also gets frozen until needed.
The cat and ferret are both freakin' wild about it - it's a treat to see
both standing on their hind legs begging at feeding time. The ferret
thinks it's a far better treat than ferretone, laxotone, or a chomp off
the cat. :)
Melissa