Ferretstore.com

[weezz]

Not sure where to put this as there isn't a section (that I could see anyways) for anything but natural food.

I don't feed my guys raw, but they are fed high quality grain/corn free food. For years now I have been using as part of their diet, the Ferret Store brands of food as they met the requirements of grain/corn free.

A few weeks ago I went to place my monthly food order, when lo and behold BOTH foods were on backorder and not available again until the middle of April. I contacted their customer service and was told at that time nothing was wrong with the food, just the manufacturer was having problems. I was checking up on them again today, and noticed that the Natural Choice food was not listed on the site anymore. Contacted customer service again, and now find out the Natural Choice has been DISCONTINUED!! I am also going to assume that the Superior Choice will at some point be discontinued also (although I was told otherwise). I suggested to them that the least they could have done was post a notice in the food section on the site that the food was discontinued.

I am extremely

I was scrambling a few weeks ago, when I found out about the backorder, to come up with other high protein/grainfree kibble for their mix. Now it's more of a headache as I will be discontinuing this product completely. And we all know, there isn't ONE good FERRET food out there that is grain/corn free (I know Zupreem has one, but I'm not paying that sort of price). The natural pet food store we go to is going to love us.

For those of you that feed kibble, let this be a heads up to feed MORE THAN ONE TYPE OF KIBBLE. I do, it's just that 50% of their food was from the Ferret Store. Now, I will make sure that I use food from different manufacturers.

Thanks for letting me rant.

[miamiferret2]

that sucks. it has happened to me before. the grain free kibbles are always more expensive but the ferrets eat less of it and poop less b/c it is more concentrated. so it evens out. try mixing in EVO cat (it is less expensive than the ferret kibble and the same ingredients). you can find it at the petstores everywhere now. if you can't find that wellness core is also good but it is more expensive and it smells awful (too much whitefish) so they may not like it. Orijen grain free and Petcurean Go! (chicken duck and turkey formula) are very good too and also grain free. but you may have to order those online. they sell them on this website: www.onlynaturalpet.com.

[Deleted]

If you haven't already, check out the Orijen Cat formulas. I have friends who feed those, the all fish one can cause some smelly stools but the chicken one is excellent. It's the only kibble I have really found good enough for ferrets, none of the name-brand ferret stuff is great. Merrick also sells a grain-free cat kibble (Before Grain) and canned foods that are grain-free, but they don't have their own processing facility like Orijen, that I know of.

P.S. Innova EVO's Ferret kibble (EXACTLY the same product as Innova EVO Cat, but they charge more) is now owned by Procter and Gamble, the whole company is. And I spoke with someone at a natural pet foods store I like, and he told me they have had a contract to put Innova in PetCo and PetSmart in a few months, and when that happens they are changing the formulas to crud. Big surprise. (Already knew it would happen.)

So that's just a heads-up.

[miamiferret2]

serengeti cat from timberwolf organics is also good.

[Sherry]

That could be interesting, as they've signed a 5 year(I think it 5, could be less) contract with Natura not to change the formula for that period of time. The biggest concern to date has been where they are going to be sourcing the ingredients from, rather than what will be going into it for the length of the contract.
Bets are on China

[Deleted]

Typing in the Natural item number takes you to the Original page, and there's a notice there that the Natural has been discontinued. The fact it's gone is totally a manufacture's issue, which I know nothing about, but I can tell you that there was virtually no notice on the distribution side (Foster and Smith) either. It wasn't dropped because of quality problems or that no one wanted it. It's a big for everybody involved, believe you me.

I can also repeat that there are NO plans to discontinue the Original diet, but if anything else changes with the manufacturer, I really hope we'll have more of a warning to pass along.

As far as kibble goes, I used to feed Natural Gold ferret mixed with EVO, both the cat formula and the red meat dog formula. Some forums have a no-cat-food opinion, but I've talked to enough people who know how kibble is made and what goes into it, and there's no difference in how ferret kibbles and cat kibbles are broken down by the digestive system.

[kainslie1]

Mar 18, 2011 10:25:37 GMT -5 Sherry said:

That could be interesting, as they've signed a 5 year(I think it 5, could be less) contract with Natura not to change the formula for that period of time. The biggest concern to date has been where they are going to be sourcing the ingredients from, rather than what will be going into it for the length of the contract.
Bets are on China

I heard that they were not doing any type of formula change for 1 (maybe 2) years, 5 years would be WAY bettter though!!
Let's hope they keep sourcing from the same places - doubtful though..

[Deleted]

Mar 18, 2011 10:33:45 GMT -5 @kainslie1 said:

Mar 18, 2011 10:25:37 GMT -5 Sherry said:

That could be interesting, as they've signed a 5 year(I think it 5, could be less) contract with Natura not to change the formula for that period of time. The biggest concern to date has been where they are going to be sourcing the ingredients from, rather than what will be going into it for the length of the contract.
Bets are on China

I heard that they were not doing any type of formula change for 1 (maybe 2) years, 5 years would be WAY bettter though!!
Let's hope they keep sourcing from the same places - doubtful though..

Kainslie's right. The guy who orders the stuff basically said it would be about a year, could be a "few months" as I worded it though, since I didn't know exactly whether it would be a year or less. But all the big-box retail pet stores are going to have it in now, and they're changing the formulas, not just sources. I don't buy anything from P&G anymore, ugh.

[Deleted]

I agree with Candice about the Orijen. My cats are on it (along with Evo and NV). I think it has 88 % animal products and 12 % vegetable/fruit. Which for a kibble is probably the highest animal % you will find