Giving your ferrets enough vitamins

[eclipso]

Hello, I've been researching this topic and it's much more complicated than expected. 

To make sure ferrets are getting vitamins, especially on kibble, some people use supplements. 
BUT
Since ferrets are carnivores, many vitamins don't get absorbed well since they are based on plants... so I looked deeper. A more natural approach is raw or freeze dried organ meat, like the liver. Beef liver is the most nutrient dense food out there. 

In 10 grams (A safe amount to give as a treat/ supplement to a ferret), beef liver will have:
- 149% of B12
- 71% of A
- 22% of B2
-15% of B5

but what about the rest of the vitamins? Or vitamin C that is hard to find in meat? Since these numbers are based on humans, how do you know if it's even enough or too much? 

How do you give your ferrets vitamins (and minerals) ?

Thanks!

[Corvidophile]

To put simply, we don’t know, we can only guess. The laboratory recommended guidelines put out by Marshall’s research are the best guess we have, they are not as rigorously studied as for instance rats and mice, for which we have a much better idea of the minimum and maximum vitamins and minerals. Below is an example of a food that actually lists their full breakdown, and the ingredients still suck.

www.labdiet.com/cs/groups/lolweb/@labdiet/documents/web_content/mdrf/mdi4/~edisp/ducm04_028205.pdf

So what this site (and other raw pet food places) seeks to do is mimic the observed feeding of their closest wild relatives, with the centuries of knowledge of breeders of their domestic cousins trial and error in raising them to support that. Ferrets were domesticated before kibble existed and their lifespans have not been improved by its introduction. The formulas we’ve arrived at include all the basic building blocks they need. For certain health conditions, adding extra powdered vitamins or minerals may help, like C for immune support in times of illness for instance, but they can synthesize C better than we can. Needing C supplied entirely by diet is a unique quirk of humans and Guinea pigs. Probably some other animals too, but those are the two I can think of right now.

[silentdook]

Wow, I'd love to find a commercial diet that high in fat!