Let's look at the worst food choices for ferrets. Additionally, there will be foods listed here that you may have thought were good, as well as foods that are not marketed for ferrets, but are still being fed to ferrets. I won't spoil anything just yet, but please do read the whole article, I think you'll be very surprised what you find on this list. These are in no order, and to keep it short, I'll only discuss the major issues in each food. The first food on my list for worst foods for ferrets is Blue Wilderness (Blue Buffalo) Kitten. This food is grain free, contains no poultry by-product meals, no artificial preservatives and no corn, wheat or soy. Sounds great, right? Let's dive in.
Guaranteed analysis: Protein 40% Fat 20% Fiber 3.5% Moisture 9.0% Making this food a total of 20.95% starches/carbohydrate Chicken / Menhaden Fish Meal I discussed this ingredient when looking at Wysong but to put it briefly, its a very questionable rendered substance formed when the cooked parts of animals are baked again. These can include roadkill, other 4D meat, condemned parts and animals rejected for human consumption, decomposing tissues, tumors, and even the plastic packaging from grocery stores. It's just not a quality ingredient. In fact, meat meal is one of the worst sources of meat a manufacturer could choose in a pet food. A better alternative, is named meat like "Chicken" or "Turkey" on the ingredient label. I also wanted to touch on Menhaden fish. This fish feeds on algae and filters up to 7 gallons of water per minute, allowing sunlight to reach the sea floor, promoting vegetative growth. These fish are vital to the ecosystem, providing food for many other fish as well. This fish is often captured for use in fish oils, and fish meal. According to the author of "The Most Important Fish in the Sea" catching large amounts of Menhaden fish would be the equivalent of grinding up the world's bees for use in products. Pea Protein / Peas / Pea Fiber (a carbohydrate) Peas, and pea ingredients are often used to make foods grain free, but it's at a huge cost for carnivores. If you see peas on your pet food's ingredient list, throw it out immediately. Peas have been linked to dilated cardiomyopathy (heart disease) it blocks the absorption of taurine in a pet food. An essential amino acid for cats and ferrets. Not only that, carnivores lack the enzymes to properly digest vegetable matter (yes, even dogs. If veggies are fed they must be prepared properly.) Tapioca Starch / Potatoes / Sweet Potatoes (a carbohydrate) Another red alert. Tapioca (and other starches) are used as a binder to keep kibble shaped. Let me repeat, cats and ferrets are obligate carnivores, they create the carbohydrate they need via the protein and fat in their diet, added carbohydrates are not only unnecessary but they're harmful. In a ferret, added carbohydrate is linked to dietary related disease called Insulinoma. It's a terminal illness that requires medication and maintenance for life. This is the 4th ingredient, making it a substantial part of the food. Other harmful or questionable ingredients in the food... dehydrated alfalfa meal, salt, alfalfa nutrient concentrate, carrots, vegetable juice, blueberries, cranberries, barley grass, parsley, dried yeast, oil of rosemary. Also worth mentioning, Blue Buffalo has some god awful reviews on the consumer affairs website. Take a look. Make sure to sort by "Most Helpful" Kaytee Fiesta Ferret Food, according to the website this food is "nutritionally fortified gourmet diet made of a premium blend of fruits, vegetables, seeds and grains offering maximum variety, fun and nutrition for small animals." I did a double take after reading this. They don't mention anything about animal product. Instead, they list everything a ferret CANNOT and SHOULD NOT EAT. Guaranteed analysis: Protein 34% Fat 19% Fiber 3% Moisture 12% Making this food a total of 26.42% starches/carbohydrate Poultry meal / Poultry By-Product Meal / Brewers Rice / Brewers Dried Yeast I already discussed these ingredients in previous food reviews, but you should know by now these are not high quality ingredients. Cheap by-product, they can't even specify what poultry is used in the meal because they don't even know themselves. Instead of using proper animal organs, they opt for the addition of brewers rice for B vitamins, yuck. Ground Wheat Finally, one we haven't yet seen. Gluten is not a natural part of a carnivores diet. It can come in wheat, oats, and corn. These products all run the risk of glyphosate contamination. Glyphosate is an herbicide used on most farms to keep produce free from parasites and pathogenic bacteria. You need to avoid this at all costs. Glyphosates have been linked to cancer, heart disease and brain disorders. "The United States leads the world for highest use, spreading about 100 million pounds on lawns and farms every year." This weed killer and confirmed carcinogen can also be paired with Enlist Duo, a spray containing agent orange. Glyphosates are not the only concern with crops. There's also the risk of aflatoxins. Poultry fat / Poultry Digest More nondescript ingredients. "Poultry fat" cannot be labeled as "Chicken fat" because the formulators don't know what bird it comes from. Poultry fat comes from unidentified animals very commonly 4D meat. It's often already rancid, and requires artificial and synthetic flavorings to make the food edible. A better alternative to this is a named fat, like "Chicken fat" or "Turkey fat." Animal digest is a "cooked-down broth made from unspecified parts of unspecified animals." It does not matter the source or quality of the product. Dehulled Soybean Meal / Soybean Oil / Soy flour / Oat Meal So much soy! These are used to replace animal protein. They're cheap, and very low quality. We all know the minuscule bio-availability of plant based proteins and ingredients in carnivores. A carnivore eating this food runs the risk of gas and bloat, as well as an allergic reaction. An alternative to soy ingredients is real animal product. Dried Molasses / Dextrose / Dried Cane Molasses Something you never ever want to see on a pet food label. I won't go into detail with this one, I think we all understand what molasses is! Pure sugar. No thank you. Dextrose is also a form of sugar. Sugar is linked to Insulinoma, insulin resistance, and weight gain. Wheat Middlings / Wheat Germ Meal I wanted to discuss this one in case you weren't aware of what it is. Wheat middlings may also be labeled as "Wheat mill run" and contain particles from wheat germ, wheat flour, and wheat shorts. It's a cheap by-product from human processing. Other harmful or questionable ingredients in the food... salt, artificial colorings, yeast extract, rosemary extract. Orijen Cat & Kitten, bet you weren't expecting to see this on the list! Orijen is very commonly fed to ferrets, right up there with Wysong. Orijen is composed of marketing masterminds, appealing to the "wild side" of our carnivores. On their website they have words like "biologically appropriate" "diet rich and varied in animal protein"...all looks good. This food is grain free, 90% animal product and 10% plant ingredients. Read on to find out how this food might be the most dangerous food on this list. Guaranteed analysis Protein 40% Fat 20% Fiber 3% Moisture 10% Making this food a total of 20.67% starches/carbohydrate Whole Red Lentils / Whole Pinto Beans / Whole Green Peas, Whole Green lentils, Whole Navy Beans / Whole Chickpeas / Lentil Fiber Yeah, that's a lot of lentils and peas. These are all used to make the food grain free, and to keep kibble shaped, but why are they used in this quantity? I'm unsure. After the ingredient analysis, I will go into depth on how this is harmful for our ferrets. Whole Pumpkin / Whole Butternut Squash / Kale / Spinach / Mustard Greens /Collard Greens / Turnip Greens / Whole Carrots / Apples / Pears / Pumpkin Seeds / Sunflower Seeds / Juniper Berries I don't know about you, but are we feeding rabbits here? This goes to show how Orijen Cat & Kitten is not biologically appropriate, not even in the slightest. Don't let the nice website and first handful of ingredients fool you. While this food does contain better protein sources and organs than the others on this list, it contains a large amount of vegetables, fruits, seeds on top of starch and plant protein. I'm unsure why the formulators thought these ingredients would be better than animal product. I swear, the second scientists discovered carnivores have, in the past, consumed a small amount of plants when absolutely everything else was scarce (3% for wolves, even less for ferrets) commercial pet food manufacturers jumped for joy. Sure, a big cat may have chewed on some blades of grass, or ate a rabbit with a belly full of greens, this does not mean carnivores can healthily digest, or benefit from plant matter. In fact, biology proves that carnivores lack the enzymes required to use plant ingredients. It goes right through them, producing massive stools of indigestible product. I mean, just look at their teeth or their stomach. A carnivore has sharp teeth that move in a vertical pattern to destroy and consume animal bones and tissues. They also have a single chamber, highly acidic stomach meant to break down bone and pathogenic bacteria. Herbivores, have flat molars that move in a horizontal manner, with many stomach chambers and a long digestive tract. Apparently, these facts don't matter to commercial pet food companies. It's all about cutting costs. Back to Orijen, the real concerns with the food are in consumers experiences with their ferrets. Bladder stones, have been a major issue in ferrets consuming this food, even for a short period of time. I would say that the bulk of ferrets with diet related stones were all due to feeding this specific brand. To me, that's enough to throw the food in the trash forever. A single case? Eh, might have been a fluke. 5 cases? Huh...not great. 10+ cases? Alright somethings going on here. Learn more about the dangers of bladder stones. IF YOU WANT TO KEEP YOUR FERRETS HEALTHY, DO NOT FEED ORIJEN. Pull it up on Amazon and look at the top reviews, see for yourself. Wild Havest Ferret Advanced Nutrition Diet, commonly found in stores like Walmart. This food is often chosen as it's very inexpensive. "High-quality protein and fat in every bowl to provide the balanced variety of nutrients that ferrets need." Let's see if this holds true. Guaranteed Analysis Protein 30% Fat 15% Fiber 8% Moisture 10% Making this food a total of 31.00% starches/carbohydrate Right off the bat, this food contains way too much fiber! That level of indigestible fibers can seriously harm a ferret. Remember, fiber is a carbohydrate. Poultry Meal / Poultry Fat / Poultry Digest Never trust foods with nondescript protein products. I already discussed these ingredients with the foods earlier in the list. Ground Corn / Corn Gluten Meal / Corn oil (a carbohydrate) Corn is a cheap filler ingredient used as a binder. These are the 2nd and 4th ingredients, meaning they make up a large part of the food. Again, there's the same crop related risks with corn, glyphosates, aflatoxins, and much more. Corn is also very high on the glycemic index. Dried Plain Beet Pulp / Brewer's Rice / Brewer's Dried Yeast / Rice Hulls I talked about the beet pulp and dried yeast before...but Brewer's rice is missing the majority of nutrients found in ground rice, and is considered a low quality rice product. Not to mention, ferrets cannot benefit from a rice ingredient. Fish Oil I hope by now you're catching on that kibble companies do not need to disclose the source of any ingredient. "Fish oil" is it from salmon? Krill? Cod? The world may never know. Raisin Juice / Molasses Products(?) My personal favorite. Raisins and grapes are poisonous to both cats and dogs. Even a small amount is enough to send your pet into complete kidney failure. If you see this in a pet food...run away! "Mazuri Ferret Diet offers proper ferret nutrition in an extruded form for all life stages of ferrets. This highly palatable, nutrient-dense dry ferret food contains multiple animal derived proteins appropriate for carnivores." Judging based on the product bio, definitely sounds better than some of the other foods we've seen. Let's take a look... Guaranteed Analysis Protein 38% Fat 20% Fiber 4% Moisture 12% Making this food a total of 20.08% starches/carbohydrate Poultry by-product meal / Ground Brown Rice / Dehulled Soybean Meal / Dried Beet Pulp / Soy Protein Concentrate / Soybean Oil / Dried Brewer's Yeast All inexpensive yuck. Porcine Animal Fat preserved with BHA / Poultry Fat preserves with BHA Nondescript animal fats preserved with a carcinogen, not safe for consumption in pets or humans! Other harmful or questionable ingredients in the food... fish meal, fish oil, salt, rosemary extract. Honorable Mentions To save us some time, I'm going to list some honorable mentions. In reality, I could make this article pages and pages long. But, I think you all get the gist now and maybe have learned some tools on how to better determine the quality of a pet food. Again, this was in no order. I unfortunately don't have the time to sift through every food fed to ferrets to determine the worst of the worst. I'll tell you though, they're all pretty similar. Stay away from... - Any Blue Buffalo / Wilderness product - Any Kaytee product - ZuPreem Ferret Diet - Meow mix / any grocery store food (Iams, Rachel Ray, etc.) - Any Marshalls product - Wellness Core - Any Purina product - Taste of the Wild - Shepperd and Green Ferret - 4Health - Any Path Valley product - ANY VEGAN / VEGETARIAN PET FOOD - Any Royal Canin product - Sunscription VitaPrima Ferret - Instinct Ultimate Protein
3 Comments
Paige
6/25/2020 05:51:36 pm
Can you please let us know which dry food is the best. I have switched so many times and recently switched to Orijen because more than 3 people at my towns pet store said that is the best and it’s what they feed their ferrets. I want my ferrets to live the best life. I really just need a final say and FINAL food switch.
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Bryn
6/25/2020 06:00:10 pm
Hi Paige, I don't find any dry food to be healthy. The closest would be air dried raw food, like Ziwipeak. I have a video on my YouTube channel, Pazuandfriends!
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Yanet
8/22/2020 12:14:57 pm
If I feed Ziwipeak how much should I give them or it needs to be 24/7? N can they eat it how it comes or do I need to break it down?
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