What's the best food for my ferret? Can they eat cat food or homemade?

It is safe to feed the cat food, but it's not a substitute for a formulated ferret diet. The dietary requirements of ferrets differ enough that you can end up feeding too much of certain nutrients and not enough of others. Marshall, Wysong and Mazuri are all good brands of ferret food. I hope that helps.

Ferrets have very exact nutritional requirements and a complete ferret food based on animal proteins is preferred (they do not digest dairy or plant based proteins well). There are many brands available, I have always found the james wellbeloved to be palatable for them. Occasional treats of fresh (boiled) meat or eggs are ok also

Thanks for reaching out. Marshal Farms, Totally Ferret of 8 in 1 brand probably have the best reputation and experience. But others could be fine also, read the ingredient label. Ferrets are very finicky eaters so might have to perform trial and error.

Hello and thank you for reaching out to Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach. Ferrets are strict carnivores; they require diets based on highly digestible animal (meat) protein with little to no carbohydrates. If you choose to feed dry food, choose high quality ferret or cat/kitten foods sold by pet shops, feed stores, and veterinarians with at least 36% protein, that is moderate in fats (approximately 20%) and low in carbohydrates. Ferrets should NOT eat sugary cereal, peanut butter, grains, corn, rice, carbohydrates, raisins, bananas, other fruits, vegetables, dairy products, chocolate, other sweets, or any food with sugar. All of these items are loaded with complex carbohydrates and a ferret's strictly carnivorous digestive tract cannot process these foods. Diets high in carbohydrates may lead to intestinal problems and some types of cancer. I hope this is helpful!

It is best that you don't feed any human food to your ferret. Their bodies are not made to process all the preservatives and other things that are in our foods. They make special treats for them so I suggest you use something like these: http://www.ferretdepot.com/toys-!%60-treats/ferret-treats/ Hope this helps!

This diet is acceptable to feed your ferret. The small amount of fruits and vegetables in it likely will not negatively impact his health. Introduce it gradually, monitoring for any stomach upset (vomiting or diarrhea).

I personally prefer giving a cat dry food, or a mixture of dry food and wet food. Cats have extremely specific dietary needs, which is very hard to achieve in a homemade diet. For example, cats cannot convert certain animo acids into essential ones they need to be healthy, and they therefore must be present in the diet for the cat to meet the important dietary requirement. There are four brands of food that have a veterinary nutritionist on staff to make sure the recipes for the food meet the cat's nutrition needs, and they are Royal Canin, Hill's Science diet, Purina ProPlan, and Iams. I recommend feeding your cat from those brands. If you really want to do to a homemade diet, I will put two websites below that have recipes for homemade balanced diets for cats. As for chicken and ham, chicken is fine as an occasional treat as long as it's boiled white meat chicken with no bones. I do not recommend ham because it's too fatty. I hope this helps! https://secure.balanceit.com https://www.petdiets.com