Bad poops with FDR soupie :( Please help!

[fert]

Hi guys, I’m new to HFF so please excuse and kindly correct any errors I make in posting. I’ve tried discussing this in the ferret discord and with my vet and I’m not too sure what to do so if anyone has anecdotal experience or maybe some tips, I’m all ears.

Background: I have 2 ferrets who are from the same litter. Both on S&C FDR rabbit at the moment.

Back in December 2023, I noticed they were having seedy poops. They were being fed chicken, turkey, and duck FDR so we cut down to just chicken. Some poops were perfect but a lot were bad. Bad ranging from seedy to mucousy to loose. Then I tried just duck and they were even worse. I’d say most of them were bad Currently, they’re on rabbit and for a while their poops were perfect every time. I wanted to try beef and pork so I tried that by mixing rabbit with the beef and then the next week, rabbit with the pork with soupie. They had bad poops off the bat and basically refused to eat it so I stopped that.

Now we’re just left with rabbit and their poops are still really good, but I’ve noticed that without fail, the poop after soupie is always worse than with the dry FDR. It kinda depends on the day, but the poop after soupie ranges from loose + seedy or seedy + mucous.

What I’ve tried so far:
I’ve tried cutting back on the water and cutting back to 1 soupie instead of 2 per day to see if maybe the soup was too watery… didn’t work. I thought about cutting soupies completely but I know that it’s recommended to feed at least 1 so they don’t get dehydrated (although I think they drink a good amount of water on their own, so I don’t know.)

I was thinking either trying another protein on its own (specifically turkey) to see if they might tolerate the combo better, or trying Totally Ferret non chicken formula.


Let me know what advice you all have!

[Corvidophile]

I took a look at the common ingredients across Stella and Chewy’s recipes and aside from beneficial bacteria and minerals, it seems to be pumpkin seeds, kelp, and dandelion. It’s possible that your ferrets, being so closely related, are both allergic to one of these ingredients. The next step is to try a different brand of FDR without them and see what happens. Remember that it can take a week or more for their guts to settle down after inflammation. How long are your feeding trials?

[fert]

Hm good to know about the pumpkin, kelp, and dandelion. Thank you! I’ll look into other FDR brands. I’m new to feeding FDR so would I need to transition them slowly from S&C FDR to the new FDR brand?

I tried just chicken for about a month, duck for a few weeks, and rabbit for almost 2 months now since it’s shown the best results with regards to their poo situation. For the beef and pork, they literally refused to eat it. They would eat it if it was just a sprinkle of the pork or beef mixed with a lot of rabbit, but as soon as I increased it to a quarter, they refused. They also had really bad poops immediately after trying it so I stopped feeding it. Should I have given the beef and pork a longer try?

[Corvidophile]

Ok, your trials are long enough to be able to tell whether the new food is irritating, that’s good. Ferrets can be tricky about trying new foods, if you still have some pork and beef left you can try slowly increasing the amounts included again, but it’s not necessary since any of the diets are nutritionally balanced on their own. Do transition brands slowly.

[fert]

So I took a look a bunch of FDR brands and finally settled on Vital Essentials. It doesn’t list kelp, pumpkin, or dandelion in the ingredients:

Rabbit, Rabbit Liver, Rabbit Heart, Rabbit Kidney, Rabbit Lung, Herring Oil, Mixed Tocopherols (Preservative), Vitamin E Supplement, Zinc Amino Acid Complex, Iron Amino Acid Complex, Copper Amino Acid Complex, Manganese Amino Acid Complex.

I guess if they were to have an allergy to either kelp, pumpkin, or dandelion, the proteins I have tried within S&C don’t hold a lot of weight because their possible kelp, pumpkin, or dandelion allergy would be interfering with protein elimination results. So even if they didn’t tolerate S&C duck, doesn’t mean they are allergic to duck all together.

I wanted to start with rabbit on its own since it seems like a fairly low chance of causing a protein allergy and my ferrets have tolerated S&C Rabbit the best out of the other flavors I’ve tried. Problem is, is that the protein is 60% in rabbit. I heard somewhere that protein >50% can cause diarrhea if fed alone/not mixed with a lower % protein. Should I still try the Vital Essentials’ rabbit FDR on its own and then start trying other flavors? Or should I try duck (the only flavor that has <50% protein)?

[Corvidophile]

Hmm, I haven’t heard of that. All I know diarrhea-wise with dry foods is that excess liver will do it, and Wysong brand has a reputation for diarrhea.

[fert]

Okay yeah I guess it applies to kibble, not FDR!