From:
Roger Vaughn
Date: 2002-01-02 22:01:00 UTC
Subject: Re: [Ferret-Health-list] Inflammatory Bowel Disease
Iams Lamb and Rice contains chicken and beef in addition to the lamb.
Nice, huh? If Claymore's IBD is being triggered by a food allergy, it
is most likely chicken, and the Iam's formulation doesn't solve the
problem.
Ask your vet for Hill's Z/D feline. It's a hypoallergenic food made
for cases like this. It also contains chicken, but the proteins are
specially "hydrolyzed" - kind of predigested, supposedly making it
easier to digest and less likely to trigger an allergic reaction. I
use this with one of mine who I suspect has mild IBD.
Your vet can also order you some special non-allergenic diets for
cats. (Unfortunately there's NOTHING specifically for ferrets...) if
you want to try them. There are pure lamb, duck, and rabbit formulas
available. I have tried these with one of my cats, but not my ferrets.
A cat diet might not be ideal, but it's certainly better than ferret
food he can't digest.
Thanks to everyone who pointed out the Z/D when *I* asked this
question! :-)
As for the others, start varying their diets somewhat. Feed them other
kibbles, some wet foods, or natural foods as well. Feeding a diet of
one food constantly is known to cause eventual allergic reactions like
IBD.
Personally, I would suggest you drop the Marshall's - the stuff doesn't
even have real meat until the fourth ingredient, and that's a fish!
Mine do much better on Zupreem and 8-in-1 - and are much less smelly to
boot. Other people have great success with Totally Ferret, Mazuri and
a few others.
Roger
Digger and Bear
> Hello everyone.I've been reading posts on this site for 2 months
> and haven't seen any thing pertaining to this as of yet.
>
> One of my males-a rescue of undetermined age, has been diagnosed by
> our vet to have inflammatory bowel disease. She figures Claymore
> to be around 5 to 6 years old. We've had him for 4 years and until
> 4 months ago, he enjoyed good health, and his stools were textbook
> healthy. He started having