# Day Old Chicks As Staple For Ferrets



## Richo (Jan 4, 2008)

I'm thinking of moving our ferrets on to mainly day old chicks as their staple food, as it is probably cheaper and a more natural food stuff than the dry kibble they have at the moment. Does anyone else feed ferrets mainly chicks? Are there any issues with this? 2 each a day? We have 3 fairly small females, a smallish male and a really large male (males are kept separate).

They also have the occasional other treat like rabbits, pigeons and other bits of raw meat, and the other day I even found a half eaten rat that had wandered in to the wrong stable over night.


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## 2manydogs (Oct 23, 2007)

They say you should not,as there's no goodness in them,they are just feathers


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## 123dragon (Jan 15, 2011)

if theres enough goodness in them to keep my gfs snakes and my cat healthy im sure they will do for ferrerts, it would be better to offer more selection though


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## Draco (Nov 23, 2005)

they are a very low value food. plus they have to much yoke in them.

I deffinotly would not reccomend it.


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## DAZWIDD (Feb 9, 2009)

I'm on the side of the "not enough nutrition" people, animals can "live" on them, but not as well as an animal with a mixed diet.


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## sunnydelighter (Jul 5, 2008)

Ferret food is design to meet the nutria national needs of the ferret , when I did have ferrets I fed them biscuits the chicks as an occasional treat to me the ferret biscuits are an essential part of there diet x


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## mrcriss (Nov 2, 2010)

2manydogs said:


> They say you should not,as there's no goodness in them,they are just feathers


Complete rubbish!


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## mrcriss (Nov 2, 2010)

Richo said:


> I'm thinking of moving our ferrets on to mainly day old chicks as their staple food, as it is probably cheaper and a more natural food stuff than the dry kibble they have at the moment. Does anyone else feed ferrets mainly chicks? Are there any issues with this? 2 each a day? We have 3 fairly small females, a smallish male and a really large male (males are kept separate).
> 
> They also have the occasional other treat like rabbits, pigeons and other bits of raw meat, and the other day I even found a half eaten rat that had wandered in to the wrong stable over night.


A well known ferret rescue in the north west used to feed an all raw diet to their clan, and they were the healthiest, most long lived ferrets around. Think they've closed now though.

Kibble is only given for convenience…..if you want to feed raw entirely, then go for it!:2thumb: (plus kibble is just full of rendered animal product which is crap! Wouldn't feed that to any of my animals anymore)


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## Richo (Jan 4, 2008)

I think I'll keep giving them kibble which they can take as they want it but increase the amount of raw foods they get. I would be quite happy for them to eat nothing but raw but for convenience it's not always possible. I do a bit of shooting as well so they get variation, even the occasional bits of venison off cuts.


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## DAZWIDD (Feb 9, 2009)

Surely Chris you would say a mixed raw diet, not just chicks


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## TalulaTarantula (Jan 21, 2011)

Fed mine on a mixture of Raw and kibble, theyd always have biscuits available that would be eaten throughout the day,
As for Raw, i never gave mine chicks, but they were fed on rabbit, pigeon and anything else we'd get out when working with them, when they werent being worked, our butcher would give us a bag of off cuts and the like for free, they absolutley loved raw liver, they were happy healthy ferrets, i wouldnt keep them primarily on the same thing, its always good to offer a variety aswell as avoid boredom, i sure wouldnt want to eat the same thing everday


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