Ferret Info

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Your Ferret’s Ideal Menu

Look who’s coming to dinner! Ferret owners undoubtedly want to take the best possible care of their little one. But with so many commercial foods on the market for pets today, it could be easy to get steered in the wrong direction and feed your ferret something that just isn’t right for him. Understanding the nature of your ferret’s feeding habits will help you to ensure he is being fed well enough to live a long and healthy life.

It’s important to understand that the natural diet of the ferret is rodents. Throughout history, domesticated ferrets were used as hunting animals and survived on the prey that they captured. While today ferrets are not released out into the backyard by their owners to catch their evening meal, this does not mean that any store bought food would be sufficient to feed their tiny bodies.

Like the cat, ferrets are obligate carnivores (meat eaters). Therefore, the diet your ferret requires must contain a good amount of meat. Meat is not enough though. When ferrets lived in a time where they would hunt their own food, they not only ate the meat; they also consumed the bones, liver, kidneys and intestinal tract of the small animal they caught. Consuming all of these things provided the ferret with the essential nutrients necessary for health.

What you need to know about your ferrets diet needs is that most of their calories need to come from simple carbohydrates, protein and fat. Being fed the proper diet that includes the components their body needs helps your ferret to maintain their naturally high level of energy. The type of concentrated diet that a ferret requires will not be provided by dog food, so please do not make this a part of your pet’s dinner menu. Doing so would greatly impact the life span of the companion who gives you such joy.

When deciding which commercial ferret food to buy for your pet, be sure to check the label. The digestive cycle of the ferret is short, which makes it difficult for them to break down plant proteins. What this means to the ferret owner is that food containing corn (or cornmeal) will not do well in the ferrets system. Eating corn also increases blood-sugar levels, which forces your ferrets pancreas to produce insulin at a higher rate than it should.

What you do want in your ferrets food is good Protein quality. Protein from poultry or meat meal is about 80% digestible. Protein from poultry by-product, or from ground yellow corn meal, is much less digestible. Obviously, the more digestible, the better for your ferret. Plus, the corn meal should be avoided. Another thing your ferret food should have is fat. Ferrets need and prefer the flavor of fat from animal sources. A commercially made ferret food should contain 15-18% fat, the most concentrated form of energy for your pet. The last ingredient needed in a quality ferret food is fiber. This could be through plant hulls, such as oat bran, or vegetable material such as beet pulp. Ferrets don’t require large amounts of fiber, 4% or less in their food is ideal.

You are what you eat! To keep your ferret happy and healthy, feed them what they need.

Scott Reinheart