Proper Diet for Ferrets

A ferret is a cute pet with shiny coat and grand whiskers. However, your pet will need some great ferret diet to keep it that way. Meeting your ferret's dietary needs is of primal importance if you want a healthy, active ferret as a pet. Let us now move on to a complete understanding of the best kind of diet that you should start for your pet.

Ferrets are mammals belonging to the Mustelidae family. Now whether it is the diet of the Silver-Mitt ferret, White-footed ferret or the black footed ferret, the diet needs to be taken care of. Use the following pointers in planning a good diet for your pet. One which will provide it with all the essential nutrients and take care of its basic dietary needs.

Ferrets are carnivores and prefer to ingest meats. The ready-made pet foods in the market have let to a cut in the natural diet. People have started buying more and more of these foods which are proving to be dangerous for the ferrets. This is because they are highly processed and do not provide for a ferrets regular intake of protein (30-40 %).

A ferret in its natural surroundings will eat its prey whole or feast on its body parts. Thus, it requires meat based protein that is easily digestible. Do not compare it to humans or other pet species as it will not make do with vegetable proteins. It requires a meat based diet that has no fiber because of a delicate digestive system.

Sources of the Food
For your pet ferret include meat and meat meals to feed your ferret rather than by-products of protein. The perfect choice is mice, chicks, eggs and some species of fish. Make sure that you avoid feeding them with corn, soy, rice, grains and the like, because even though they are high in proteins, they do nothing for the ferrets.

A ferret diet should also be rich in fat content, about 20-30%. This is because, unlike humans, ferrets do not require carbohydrates (found in vegetable, fruit and grain) for energy but depend on fat to fulfill that need.

Sources of the Food
Include diets that are high sources of omega 3 fatty acids and omega 6 acids. These are usually found in poultry animals.

A ferret does not require treats if its diet is being supplemented with a well-balanced, meat-based meal. However, if the need to include treats in a ferret's diet is felt then feed it an animal part like the liver, heart or muscle meat. An egg or a mouse are also good choices.

A diet should also include some traces of carbs and fiber. But it should be as low as 3%! So be extremely careful in the quantity of these in the ferret diet.

Even though the temptation to feed your ferret processed food will be high, do not do it if you care for its health. Processed food will not supplement it with the required protein and fats and along with that, it will also lead to other health problems, some of which include diabetes and liver problems.

Now that you know what a ferret diet should and should not include, make sure that you resist the temptation of buying and feeding your ferret off-the shelf and processed products and focus on meats instead. For if you don't really want to care for a ferret's diet properly, then you should not own a ferret either.