Supportive Care:

 Duck Soup and Additives

Updated: 4/29/03

 Duck Soup and Duck Soup

As the story goes, it’s called Duck soup because the first widely used recipe was created for a ferret named Duck. The label has long since been applied to a multitude of recipes of varying degrees of complexity. Soup is not a substitute for veterinary care. If your ferret is sick enough to need soup, he’s sick enough for a vet visit.

 In severe cases it can be difficult to squeeze even a milliliter of soup past a ferret’s stubbornly clench teeth. The nutritional content of soup can easily become a critical factor.

Fancy soup recipes may be excellent in theory and a tremendous salve to a ferret owner’s sense of “good” ferret care. But, the heavy-duty blenders and grinders and special ingredients required can be quite expensive. And, in most real life cases, preparation, collection of ingredients, and storage becomes a strain on time. Bear in mind your ferret will live 7 to 10 years. Your family and commitments can change substantially in that length of time. Pet care is best kept simple and efficient.

The most beneficial food for sick ferrets is their regular food. Forcing a sick ferret to eat a new and different tasting food can complicate the illness by adding Abrupt Environmental Change Disorder (stress) to his condition. Additional ingredients should be kept to the necessary minimum.  The best duck soup is the one that contains what a particular ferret needs for a particular situation. You don't take a laxative for diarrhea, do you? Nor should a ferret needing nutrition be given a soup containing mostly indigestible vegetable protein.

When a bland diet is recommended by your vet to treat your ferret’s illness, an ideal food is Gerber’s Second Stage Chicken baby food. Gerber’s Chicken can be mixed with warm water (or Pedialyte as required) to make a more easily digested “Duck Soup”. While it is very simple to make, keep “diet change stress” in mind. At some point in the future, your ferret will need to return to dry kibble. It can take considerably longer to re-introduce your ferret’s normal food when Gerber’s Chicken has been the primary food for an extended period of time.

For a soup made of your ferret’s regular dry kibble, the following recipes may be helpful.

If you have one or several ferrets with the same medical condition (or all healthy ferrets and soup is a treat), it is less effort to dilute the mush into ready to warm soup. Soup that will not be used within a week should be frozen.

If you have multiple ferrets with different (or some lacking) medical problems, making each ferret’s soup from the mush is simpler and less of a storage and preparation hassle.

Note: 1 ml. (milliliter) = 1 cc. (cubic centimeter)

Soup keeps well for one week. Preparing a one-week supply of soup at a time saves considerable daily preparation time.

Always check with your vet to determine if a particular drug can be mixed with food. Flagyl should not be mixed with soup. Ferrets universally despise this medicine and can taste it in virtually any mixture.

IMPORTANT NOTE ON NEW RESEARCH: Previously, we have been told to withhold all sugars from ferrets with insulinoma. Recent research, however, indicates that in insulinoma ferrets, the sugar does not stimulate additional insulin release (which, in normal ferrets, prompts a drop in blood glucose), and instead, actually helps to raise blood glucose levels in ferrets WITH insulinoma.  This represents a completely opposite opinion from previous recommendations. Care should be taken to keep teeth cleaned regularly. Sugars should not be given in excess nor used as the primary treatment.

This particular effect does NOT apply to healthy ferrets, only ferrets with insulinoma.

Given morning and night, the egg yolk provides an extra animal protein boost to help insure adequate blood glucose levels during the day while you’re gone to work and at night while you’re asleep. Even if your ferret “feels too bad” to get up and eat from his food bowl for those 8 to 10 hour periods, this soup will help prevent hypoglycemic shock episodes.

Ferrets are resistant (NOT immune) to salmonella. Following the administration of syrup, honey, or sugar water to intercede in a hypoglycemic shock or seizure episode, raw egg yolk is a quick and readily available protein source. Normally, cooking the egg yolk is recommended

Added Ingredients to Avoid

You may have read or been advised to use human dietary supplements (such as Ensure) as an additive to soup. Many vets still recommend these products. This recommendation is a holdover of by-gone days when there were no pet foods or supplements available that contained concentrated amounts of nutrients and vitamins. This type product was the best thing available. Human dietary supplements are not recommended, because they tend to fill the ferret’s stomach before providing adequate nutrition as the ferret’s appetite is decreased during an illness. There are many ferret foods and even high-quality cat foods that can provide more concentrated animal proteins and nutrients than those products that are nutritionally balanced for humans.

Nor is it advisable to include these supplements as a “taste” enhancement to the soup treat for healthy ferrets. Ferrets imprint on the “proper” taste and smell of food. If they are accustomed to the supplement taste in soup offered as a treat they would refuse to eat soup lacking that taste and smell when they are ill, considering it to be a “food change”.

Products containing milk or milk products should not be added to soups. Milk products will cause diarrhea, which can easily aggravate an already disturbed digestive system. A ferret can become accustomed to milk products… but it takes up to three months!

Sugars are often “disguised” in ingredient labels. As a general rule of thumb, avoid adding any ingredient that ends in “ose” (dextrose, sucrose, lactose). In addition to over-stimulation of the pancreas, sugars are detrimental to tooth enamel.

Yogurt and acidophilus may be great as a follow up to an antibiotic regimen for humans, but for ferrets they generally serve no useful purpose. The ferret anatomy lacks a caecum, the part of the intestinal tract that these “good” bacteria work in. However, in some cases, such as chronic cases of intestinal disease, these products have been found to have some beneficial effects. But for the generally healthy ferret with normal digestive rate the effects are not noticeable.

Brewer’s Yeast is for diabetics. NOT for ferrets with insulinoma. Insulinoma is the OPPOSITE of diabetes. Brewer’s Yeast contains chromium that lowers blood glucose levels.  However, Brewer’s Yeast is  a good additive for healthy ferrets.

Licorice root is theoretically beneficial for bladder, intestinal inflammation, liver problems, and ulcers but it can cause fluid retention, high blood pressure, and loss of potassium (required to metabolize blood sugar) and should be avoided in cases of heart or kidney disease.

Herbal or vitamin remedies may “be good” for a part of your ferret’s illness, but side effects might aggravate other organ problems, such as licorice root being good for the liver but hard on kidneys. Only a full blood profile by your vet can determine if these remedies are safe for each individual ferret. Don’t add herbal remedies just because “someone” said it’s good. Research the herbal remedy to learn both its good and bad points. Many herbs interact with prescription drugs.

Products containing aspirin or acetaminophen can be fatal. Only a veterinarian should prescribe these drugs for a ferret.

Specific Ingredients for Specific Purposes

• Anemia is often a complication of adrenal gland tumors or an incomplete spay in female ferrets. Liquid pet vitamins can be found at large pet stores or from your vet. Consult your vet for the necessary dosage for your ferret. Ferrevite type vitamins in a tube contain more sugars than do liquid vitamins. Liquid vitamins are more concentrated and take up less space in the stomach.
• Dehydration usually accompanies severely reduced appetites or diarrhea lasting more than a few days. Unflavored Pedialyte can be used instead of the additional water added to the mush for serving.
• Malnutrition and Failure to Thrive are serious conditions. Nutri-Cal or similar products are available from your vet. These can be mixed into soup or fed straight from the tube into the roof of the ferret’s mouth. These products contain densely concentrated calories.
• Renal Failure is a condition in which the kidneys can no longer filter toxins adequately. Lower protein foods are required. A quality, kidney problem cat food may be used instead of ferret food.
• Brewer’s Yeast is a good supplement for growing youngsters and healthy ferrets but should NOT be added to soups for insulinoma ferrets.

Consult with your vet concerning your ferret’s needs. Your vet may recommend a combination of these ingredients.

Alternative Foods and Taste Tempters

In most cases, a sick ferret will readily accept a soup he has formerly eaten as a treat. But, there are many circumstances in which a ferret has never had soup before and considers it to be just one more horrid change to endure. This may be a new ferret and you very likely have no idea what he was eating before you acquired him. In many such cases, you don’t have weeks to convince him that your high quality kibble soup is good. With a ferret in serious condition, ANY food is worth trying.

There are alternative foods you can try. Even though they are not high quality in terms of ferret nutrition, it’s far, far better to have something on his stomach than just stomach acids.

• Pro Plan’s Turkey and Barley cat food is a good quality cat food (but a “junk” ferret food) that most ferrets will virtually riot to get. Once a ferret will eat even a junk food, increasing amounts of good food can be added over a period of weeks to convert him to a better diet.
• Grocery store cat foods like Meow Mix and Purina Cat Chow are common foods fed to ferrets by owners who don’t understand a ferret’s nutritional requirements. If a sick ferret will eat this type of food, give it to him. Better a bad food than no food.

• Baby food is an excellent, easily digestible source of nutrition for sick ferrets. Gerber Second Stage Chicken or Turkey is the usual favorite of most ferrets. Avoid baby foods with added vegetables and fruits. As with soups, it is better received if it has been warmed. Adding water (or Pedialyte if necessary) will make a soup that some prefer to soft food. BUT, some ferrets that have been previously fed vegetables might respond to a meat and vegetable mixture because it smells like they think “proper” food should smell. Again, you may have to soften and mix a good ferret food with the baby food in increasing amounts to accustom him to the taste of good food. Gerber’s Chicken or Turkey can be given as the only food for 3 to 6 months or more in extreme cases without substantial nutritional deficiencies. Consult with your vet for vitamin supplements.
• Treats like Bandits, Pounce, and Whisker Lickin’s will encourage chewing. Chewing treats will often make the step to chewing dry food easier. You can even try dipping a treat the ferret will eat into a soup he needs to be eating. Hold the treat so that he must lick it and taste the soup before releasing it.

The bottom line:

• Get something on the ferret’s stomach on a regular basis.
• Start with good foods and work down.
• Don’t give up on the best food. Continue to offer it several times a day every day in addition to the food the ferret accepts easily. It may take weeks or a month or more, but the good food will eventually be accepted.