What if your ferret won't eat meat?

The thing to remember is that ferrets are obligate carnivores - that is, they would naturally eat only meat, much like their polecat cousins. However, polecats also eat the contents of their prey's stomachs, which will include grass and leaves as they prey on rabbits, mice and other rodents so small amounts of fruit and vegetable are fine.

Most ferrets love chicken - if you feed them cooked chicken, remove the bones as they can splinter. Raw chicken and other meat with the bones is very good for them - they enjoy pulling the meat off and chewing the bones is good for their teeth. Butchers will often be happy to give you a bag of bones with small scraps of meat still attached, often for no charge, which ferrets adore. Ferrets also tend to like fish, but this can make their droppings runny and smelly - be careful to remove small bones from fish such as trout. Salmon fillets tend to be popular.

Ferrets also like eggs which, since they're high in protein and fats, are highly suitable for them. Just crack a raw egg into a bowl and let them lap it up.

Avoid processed foods such as pre-cooked cold chicken and ham, spam, corned beef and suchlike as all of these are very high in salt. Check the ingredients of anything you think your ferrets might like - the nearer salt is to the start of the list, the higher the amount of salt in the food. Milk is also best avoided as ferrets are lactose intolerant.

Small amounts of kitten food can be fed to them too, but not exclusively. The best option is to feed ferret food with small amounts of other things.

Refer to related questions below for more information on feeding ferrets