As a loving ferret owner, you want to make sure that your ferret is getting all of the nutrients that it needs to live a happy and healthy life. A ferret’s diet is one of the highest contributing factors to its health, so it’s very important that you’re informed about the different types of food available so that you can make the best decision for your ferret.
Since your ferret’s food is an extremely important contributor to their health, it can be a little bit overwhelming looking at the different foods on the market. Protein composition? Amino acids? Harmful peas? There’s so much to take into account! That’s why we’ve created a guide to choosing the best food for your ferret, with some of our top recommendations to make your job as a loving ferret owner a bit easier.
Table of Contents
Image
Product
OUR #1 RATED
WysongEpigen 90 Digestive Support
A very popular food that’s made with high quality, natural ingredients and supports a healthy digestive system.
WysongFerret Archetype – Raw Ferret Food
An excellent compliment to dry kibble that’s high in protein and fat and remains very natural and healthy.
Blue BuffaloWilderness Natural Kitten Dry Cat Food
Kitten food that’s suitable for ferrets through its natural ingredients, amount of protein, and presence of healthy fatty acids.
Petcurean GO! FIT + FREEGrain-Free Cat Food
Featuring chicken, turkey, and duck, this kitten food is great for ferrets because it’s grain-free with no artificial ingredients.
Wellness CORENatural Grain Free Dry Cat Food
This food also contains chicken, turkey, and duck while staying free of additives but rich in essential nutrients.
What Do Ferrets Eat In The Wild?
To understand what makes up a good ferret food, you must first learn what ferrets actually eat in the wild. Believe it or not, they didn’t roam around eating circular pellets of kibble. Their diets have been surprisingly hardy, especially for such small creatures.
Ferrets are obligate carnivores, meaning that their wild diet consisted of the entirety of their prey – including the meat, bones, skin, feathers, and fur. Ferrets have consumed a diverse amount of animals, as they eat mostly anything that they can catch. Rabbits, rats, birds, and even snakes were frequently eaten by them in the wild.
Despite their time as pets, ferrets have not developed the ability to digest and process other types of food. In fact, ferrets lack a cecum in their digestive tract, meaning that they are largely unable to digest plant matter. Taking this into account, you start to get an idea for what you need to be looking for in your ferret’s food.
What Makes Up A Good Ferret Food?
The best ferret food is mostly just food that’s as close to their natural diet of whole animals as possible. Ferrets aren’t in need of specialty artisan creations, they simply need a food with high protein quantities, a decent amount of fat, and meat as the primary ingredients of the food.
Here’s a quick checklist of the main features of a high-quality and healthy ferret food:
- Protein percentage around 40%-60%
- Fat percentage around 18%-22%
- Fiber percentage around 3%-5%
- At least the first ingredient is meat such as chicken, turkey, or duck
- A lack of grains, fruits, and vegetables(especially peas – dangerous to ferrets)
Preferably, a good ferret food should meet all of these standards. Of course there are other factors to consider, such as there being enough amino acids, but this checklist is a great baseline to initially go off of.
Good quality food won’t come cheap, but it’s absolutely worth the investment in your ferret’s health.
Considering this point, it’s not as complicated to find a good ferret food as you may have initially thought. Ferrets are simply generally healthier when they consume food that’s close to their natural diet. While all ferrets are different in their mannerisms and specific preferences, their digestive systems are all almost exactly the same, making the fundamentals of ferret diets and food choice easier.
Can Ferrets Eat Cat Food?
Yes, ferrets can eat cat food! Well, mostly kitten food.
Either you’re struggling to find a good variety of ferret food in stores, or you simply want to expand your ferret food options. Some varieties of cat food will definitely satisfy your ferret’s nutritional needs, and a lot of ferret owners actually find that their ferret prefers and reacts better to certain cat foods.
Now, when looking for cat foods for your ferret, you still need to take the same points into consideration regarding the composition. The big idea here is that you need a cat food that’s high in protein and fat – characteristics that generally aren’t present in cat food but are common in certain kitten foods.
In addition to the high protein and fat contents, the food needs to have meat as at least the first ingredient, while avoiding fish since ferrets don’t naturally eat it. The food should also have no grains, no carbohydrates, and minimal to no fruits and vegetables. Another thing to consider is the shape of the food, as food with sharp edges can hurt a ferret’s mouth.
Most ferret food is very similar to cat food, so the process of finding a cat food that works for your ferret is generally not a problem as long as you know what to look for. Once again, ferrets differ in their dietary preferences, though, so while one ferret may love a particular food, another ferret may reject the same food.
How To Properly Feed Your Ferret
Ferrets are unique animals all around, and their eating habits are no exception. Therefore, not only do you need to pick the right food for your ferret, but you need to feed it to them properly as well.
First of all, ferrets have a very short digestive system and metabolism, meaning that they need to eat very frequently. Therefore, you should always have a bowl of food ready for your ferret to eat whenever they get hungry. Usually they have good control and only eat when hungry, so simply providing a food that’s healthy will keep their weight in check.
In addition to feeding ferrets constantly, you should know that ferrets are simply picky. They imprint on their food at around 6 months old, making it hard to get them to eat anything else once they’ve started on one type of food. This characteristic carries on throughout their lives.
A lot of owners and ferret breeders opt to mix two or three different foods together to both give your ferret a little bit of variety, but to also limit their pickiness on one particular food. However, there’s no problem with feeding your ferret the same food for the duration of their lives as long as they react well to it.
What Is The Best Ferret Food?
We’ve taken a look at many different ferret foods, taking into account things such as the quality of ingredients, the price per pound, and the physical health of the ferrets that consume each food. Through this, we’ve found five foods that would make an excellent choice for your ferret.
Remember, every ferret is different, so while there is a very good chance that your ferret would respond well to the foods listed below, they may also reject it, especially if they’ve imprinted on another food for a while.
our #1 rated
OUR TOP PICK
Wysong
Epigen 90 Digestive Support
Quality
Value
Our Rating
The Wysong Epigen 90 Digestive Support is the far-and-away favorite ferret food according to ferret owners. This food boasts a very health 62% protein and 16% fat composition, making it an extremely healthy option that really plays into a ferret’s natural diet. Additionally, this food has almost no ingredients that are bad for a ferret such as peas, with the most prominent fruit ingredient being an acceptable amount of beet fiber.As a food, this one checks all the boxes as well. The shape of the pellet is very easy for a ferret to eat without a chance of it hurting itself. Additionally, the taste is desirable to most ferrets, meaning that there is a lesser chance of them rejecting the food. Owners that feed their ferrets this food have noticed several benefits. Those benefits include thicker and healthier coats, less odor, healthy weight, and better overall mannerisms and health.While experiences are extremely positive, some owners have had experiences with receiving a bad batch, or ferrets not liking the food. In some rare cases, ferrets got diarrhea after eating the food. This side effect often results from a quick transition over to the food without easing the ferret into it, causing intestinal distress.
PROS
- High protein content
- Quality ingredients
- Alluring taste
CONS
- Generally priced higher than other brands
our #2 rated
Wysong
Ferret Archetype – Raw Ferret Food
Quality
Value
Our Rating
Another strong contribution to the ferret food market from Wysong, this Ferret Archetype – Raw Ferret Food is also well-received among ferret owners, filling a different gap within the market than the dry kibble. This food has a lower protein and lower fat concentration than the previously mentioned Wysong food, which makes this more of a healthy additive to dry food your ferret is eating.Customers respond to this food as well as they did to the Epigen 90. Many say that their ferrets quickly got a healthier coat, got noticeably more energetic, and kept healthy and regular digestive processes. Additionally, this food can be served both dry and wet, resulting in many people finding it easy to get their ferrets to eat this food with little to no rejection.Like all ferret foods, some ferrets simply refuse to eat this food, or at least are less excited about eating it. However, tactfully warming the ferret up to the food seemed to work for a lot of people. Additionally, since this food is raw, it can be a little difficult to store and keep totally fresh.
PROS
- Accessible raw diet
- Many serving styles
- Very natural ingredients
CONS
- Not the best to be fed alone
- Can be difficult to store
our #3 rated
Blue Buffalo
Wilderness Natural Kitten Dry Cat Food
Quality
Value
Our Rating
Another strong contribution to the ferret food market from Wysong, this Ferret Archetype – Raw Ferret Food is also well-received among ferret owners, filling a different gap within the market than the dry kibble. This food has a lower protein and lower fat concentration than the previously mentioned Wysong food, which makes this more of a healthy additive to dry food your ferret is eating.Customers respond to this food as well as they did to the Epigen 90. Many say that their ferrets quickly got a healthier coat, got noticeably more energetic, and kept healthy and regular digestive processes. Additionally, this food can be served both dry and wet, resulting in many people finding it easy to get their ferrets to eat this food with little to no rejection.Like all ferret foods, some ferrets simply refuse to eat this food, or at least are less excited about eating it. However, tactfully warming the ferret up to the food seemed to work for a lot of people. Additionally, since this food is raw, it can be a little difficult to store and keep totally fresh.
PROS
- Good variety of meat
- Natural diet approach
- Well-liked by ferrets
CONS
- Contains peas
- Lower end of protein composition
our #4 rated
Petcurean GO! FIT + FREE
Grain-Free Cat Food
Quality
Value
Our Rating
Another cat food option for your ferret, the Petcurean GO! FIT + FREE cat food offers nutritional benefits that the best ferret foods have. A decently high protein composition with a slightly low fat composition makes this food a healthy choice for all ferrets, with some added benefits for ferrets that are slightly heavy. A good variety of meat is also present in this food, really focusing on natural ingredients.Ferrets eating this food see similar results to those seen on Blue Buffalo. As stated, the fat content on this food is low – lower than most cat foods that are good for your ferret. This has the benefit of being slightly healthier for ferrets that tend to eat a bit too much. Fortunately, because of the fact that this food is decently rich, a ferret can be satisfied with smaller amounts.A downside to this food, and an unfortunate feature of most cat foods, is that this food also contains peas. Fortunately, the peas are far down on the ingredients list, meaning that the actual composition of peas is most likely very low. Low compositions of peas are not likely to cause any problems with ferrets, but the risk still exists.
PROS
- Good variety of meat
- Has good omega oils
- Features probiotics
CONS
- Contains peas
- Generally pricier per pound
our #5 rated
Wellness CORE
Natural Grain-Free Dry Cat Food
Quality
Value
Our Rating
Wellness CORE has created a kitten food that does what it needs to do for kittens, but also provides a good healthy diet to ferrets, too. Much like the two cat foods listed above, this food as a huge focus on protein composition with lower fat. Turkey and chicken are prominently featured in the ingredients, which is always good to see in ferret foods. The first 5 ingredients of this food are meat, making it rich in protein that’s excellent for ferrets.Ferret owners generally mix this food with one or two other foods, and find that this mixture is well-liked by their ferrets. Ferrets can digest this food well and gain an ample amount of energy and physical benefits. The fact that it stresses grain-free is also liked by ferret owners, as ferrets cannot digest grains.The main downsides to this food are in its ingredients – largely the presence of fish and peas. Ferrets don’t naturally eat fish in the wild, so it’s best to have little or no fish in a ferret food. However, one can lessen these problems by mixing this food into other foods that have no peas and fish.
PROS
- Good protein content
- First 5 ingredients are meat
- Provides ferrets with good energy
CONS
- Contains peas
- Contains fish
Our Choice
All of the foods that we have reviewed are more than suitable for ferrets and contain all of the essential nutrients that they need to live a happy and healthy life. Ferrets have specific dietary needs, and despite the fact that three of the foods listed above are originally created for kittens, there’s a good chance that your ferret will thrive on any of the foods above.
After analyzing all of the foods, we’ve determined that the best ferret food is Wysong Epigen 90 Digestive Support.
This well-priced ferret food has been specifically crafted for ferrets by one of the leading ferret food manufacturers around. The benefits that it brings ferrets along with its lack of apparent flaws and big focus on natural ingredients makes it a very safe choice for the staple of any ferret’s diet.