Grain free bad?

[Deleted]

I took Buddha to the vet today to get his last baby distemper vaccine and a general exam. This is the second vet he's been too, as the first one was a dingbat who didn't seem to know anything about ferrets. I was told the vet we saw today specializes in exotics and sees many ferrets. When asking what I fed him and general questions like that, she said if I'm feeding kibble to avoid Grain Free diets. I can't remember exactly why but it has something to do with grain free diets supplementing with other stuff that is bad for ferrets. Can anyone clarify? I liked the doctor but I'm wondering if I should continue the veterinarian search.

[unclejoe]

Avoid peas, chick peas, lentils and sweet potatoes. All are high in oxalates, and can lead to kidney/bladder stones. Ferrets need more meat and less carbs.  A lot of grain free kibbles, ZuPreem and Evo included, substitute peas for grains for the protein content.  I've fed ZuPreem ferret diet for years, as part of a meat and kibble based diet, and have never had stones.  We quit Evo after doing some research on kidney stones.  Only one ferret has had diagnosed kidney failure, and she was over 6 years old.
Welcome to the group.  

[Deleted]

Thanks for the response. I'll be sure to keep an eye on the ingredients. I'm currently mixing the regular zupreem and wellness core(which is grain free). I was looking for Orijen but haven't been able to find it anywhere. I also offer NV commercial freezer raw but he doesn't like it.

[LindaM]

Unfortunately, Wellness Core (all 4 flavors) contains Peas within the very first 6 ingredients, thus a lot of owners try to avoid feeding it. I fed a small bag of it mixed in with at least 2-3 other kibbles, back when I fed kibbles, and once I found out about the Peas contained in it and the possibility of it leading to bladder and kidney stones, I stopped using it entirely.

Do you mean the Zupreem Premium Ferret kibble? Personally, I don't think Zupreem in general is a very good kibble and there are much better out there still. The second ingredient is Wheat Flour, an indigestible, so going by the way ingredients are listed by highest amount in the product to lowest amount, you can easily assume almost 40-50% of that bag is not digestible to your ferret (to be sure of a better rough estimate one would need to contact the company). The Grain-Free one is worse as the second ingredient is Sweet Potatoes, but the regular isn't very good either. If you do wish to use it, I suggest mixing it with a higher-tier kibble like Orijen.

I suggest trying Orijen's website's Where To Buy locating function to find a store that sells it near you. Otherwise you may have to resort to an online provider, like Amazon.
www.orijen.ca/where-to-buy/

As for using NV Instinct Frozen Raw, if he doesn't like it at first, you can smash it into a paste and add some water to make it into a soupie. After doing that you can do the Grab'n'Dab with him. Grab the ferret, dip your finger in the soup, and dab it on his gums/mouth/nose, and then let him go again. You can do this multiple times throughout the day, or even do a whole session of say 20-30 minutes, and dab every 5 minutes. Eventually, he'll get used to the taste of it.