Robin Hochgertel: Hi! I am Robin from FerretsFirst Rescue. We are here to teach you how to care of your ferrets. So lets get started with the food.

First of all, ferrets are obligate carnivorous. That means they should only have meat and meat products, no carbohydrates, no vegetables, no fruits. You try and avoid any foods that have grains in it. So what you are looking for in a food is a food that's high in protein, anywhere from 36%-40%+, high in fat 22% and very low in carbohydrates. Try to avoid the grains, try to avoid the sugars. Several of them have no grain in them. That's just the best thing for them because they can't process it. Whatever carbohydrates they take in, they just eliminate it without using it. So the better the food you feed your ferret, the less they are going to eat and the less they are going excrete and the more they are going to utilize. A lot of us are now feeding our ferrets, cat food because cats are also obligate carnivorous. They have come out with some very-very high nutritious, high protein, high fat foods for cats. They are very good for ferrets. When it comes to giving ferrets treats, there is an awful lot of treats out there in the market, a lot of which are not good for the ferrets.

The ones that are good for the ferrets are the treats that are made out of chicken cartilage and then formed into little sticks. There are also treats that are made out of sweet protein. Then it is a protein that they can digest. They don't get a whole lot of nutritional value from it, but chewing on these silly sticks helps clean their teeth and they are digestible for them.

Last but not least, it's not the best treat in the world but it's one of the better treats and those are bandits. They come in a variety of flavors. They do have a little bit of sugar in them, but not really that much. One important thing is to always make sure that your ferret has food available for it and it should always have water available 24 hours a day. Now that we have talked about ferret diet, next we are going to talk about ferret hygiene.