Food & Treats
The most important thing to remember when deciding what food and treats to provide to your ferret is that ferrets are obligate carnivores. This means that they require animal protein and cannot process vegetable protein or gain nutrients from vegetables. This is because ferrets lack a cecum, the section of intestine that helps omnivores like us process vegetables.
Also, from the time food enters the ferret's body until the time it exits is a matter of only a few hours. Because of this, ferrets need high quality food with high levels of fats and protein because the body has less time to absorb these important nutrients.
Ferrets need as close as possible to 40% protein, 20% fat and less than 3% fibre however it is also important that these are achieved by high quality ingredients. Some high quality kitten foods can have the important nutrient requirements of ferrets however you will need to research the ingredients.
The diet that kits eat in their first 2 months of life is what they will prefer to eat as an adult so if buying a kit check to see what their diet is. This is called imprinting.
At Ferret-Land we have been researching this. We did have our own labelled ferret food but sadly the manufacturer went into administration so as of now we use and recomend Alpha Ferret Biscuits. We use these with all our ferrets in our care. They will not need extra vitamins if fed meat and a good ferret biscuit however small quantaties such as ferretone can be used as treats and for sick ferrets.
Plenty of fresh raw meat will help keep your ferret healthy and they will love you for it. Gutted rabbit is the best, boiled egg once a month max, lambs liver, kidneys & heart once a week max, chicken. NO processed or Spices. Can be purchased from supermarkets and butchers. Make sure they have fresh water available constantly. If wild freeze first and thoroughly defrost to kill fleas etc.
