Making the switch to raw may present as challenging and unobtainable to some, but I assure you with enough time and patience, the pay-off will be worth it.
Ferrets imprint on their food at a very young age and will be very resistant to a late switch. Do not fear, once your ferrets learn that raw food is FOOD, the rest will be history and you will be well on your way to a healthier ferret.
*** Important Note***: I frequently find people feeding the 'soupy' long-term. This is NOT A SUSTAINABLE DIET and is used ONLY AS A TRANSITIONING TOOL. Soupies are not properly balanced for long-term feeding and do not provide any bone content which will put your ferret at risk for severe dental disease in a few months. It is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT to transition from the soupy onto grinds, frankenprey, or whole prey.
I also want to urge people making the transition from kibble to raw to fast their kibble-fed ferrets for 1-3 hours prior to offering raw, as a mix of the two within the digestive tract will cause vomiting/diarrhea. (Ferrets with insulinoma should not be fasted longer than two hours.)
The 'soupy' recipe linked above is a mostly balanced blend of raw ingredients simply made to teach your ferret(s) the taste of raw. As stated, it is extremely important to understand that this is not a sustainable long-term diet as it does not offer variety and contains no bones to maintain your ferrets' dental health. Soupies are typically utilized to transition older ferrets to a raw diet as younger ferrets are typically more open-minded to trying new things. When prepared properly, it lacks texture and allows a ferret to lap it up. When reading the recipe, you'll find the recommendation to portion it into an ice cube tray for feeding later. Properly made 'soupies' are only good for 6-8 hours, which is another reason it can not be a long-term meal.
Grinds are a step above the soupy, meaning that they typically have bone blended into them. When purchasing grinds from a whole prey provider or creating them yourself, the grinds must follow the "Whole Prey Model", meaning at a minimum they contain 80% muscle meat, 10% secreting organ meat, and 10% edible bone. While grinds still contain bone, occasionally some bone may be too hard to digest and be left in the bowl or not digested at all. This being said it is still important that your ferrets' teeth be brushed daily to prevent dental disease. Grinds are safe to keep out for 8-12 hours, as they are denser than soupies.
Frankenprey is essentially a step between grinds and whole prey, although there is much more to it than that. Fundamentally, frankenprey feedings are chunks of muscle meat, secreting organ meats, and bone-in meats. This form of feeding allows the ferrets to maintain their dental health once properly eating edible bones on their own. Frankenprey feeding incorporates a "feeding menu" that rotates through muscle meats, secreting organs, and bone-in meats throughout the week to mimic a whole prey diet. Visit this link to find a menu example. Frankenprey is good to stay out for 10-24 hours, depending on the density of each item.
Whole prey feeding is by far the best option for feeding your ferrets, so long as they are comfortable eating it on their own. This form of feeding consists of providing a whole animal to your ferrets such as quail, rabbit, rats, mice, and guinea pigs. Depending on the density of the prey items, they can last up to 48 hours before needing to be discarded.
It's important to note that feeding juvenile prey such as chicks, mice/rat pups is not considered nutritionally balanced and should only be fed as a treat.
With all standards of raw feeding, the most important rule is to feed at least 3-4 different protein groups, with at least one being red meat, throughout the week. This aims to fully balance their raw diet and offer them vital minerals and vitamins that cannot be found in a single protein. It is best to feed as much variety as possible to your ferrets, but the minimum is 3-4.
Important Note: Chicken, Turkey, and Duck are considered similar protein sources and can not be counted as separate protein sources.
Find out what proteins offer by clicking this link: Vitamins and Minerals in Raw Food
As whole prey meals are the most biologically appropriate diet for the ferret, any raw meals that are not whole prey should mimic its design.
65-70% Muscle Meat
10% Heart (kept in its own category for vital taurine content)
5% Liver
5% Secreting Organs
10-15% Edible Bone
Muscle Meats: Beyond the scope of regular "muscle meats", some organs are not considered nutritional and are mainly comprised of tissues and muscles. These include gizzards, tongues, and lungs.
Secreting Organ Meats: A select amount of organs are acceptable to feed ferrets as some organs do not contain enough nutritional value in their meals. Acceptable secreting organs include the liver, kidney, spleen, brain, pancreas, gallbladder, uterus, and testicles. It's important to remember that the heart should be considered in a seperate category for it's taurine content.
Edible Bone: Edible bones must be raw (as cooked bones risk splintering) and are non-weight-bearing bones. Edible bones for ferrets include chicken wings, rabbit, quail, and other small game bones. Beef and pork bones are too dense to be eaten by ferrets. Also, note that chicken and duck feet are not recommended to be fed to ferrets as they have too low of a meat-to-bone ratio and risk constipation from an excess of calcium.
Bone-In Meats: Similar to edible bone, bone-in meats keep the meat around the bone intact.
Taurine: An essential amino acid exclusively found in animal-based proteins. Taurine is vital for heart muscle function, as well as vision, digestion, and the immune system.
The average ferret requires roughly 10% of their body weight in raw food a day. This amount will need to be fine-tuned and adjusted according to your ferret's weight goal and the amount they eat per day.
While kibble-fed ferrets must eat throughout the day to stabilize their glucose throughout the dramatic rises and drops caused by kibble, a raw diet stabilizes a ferret's blood glucose properly, thus nixing the need for freely available kibble. This is also why it is heavily recommended to fast a kibble-fed ferret for 1-3 hours prior to offering raw during the transition process.
Combining kibble and raw not only defeats the goals of raw feeding but may also put your ferrets at risk. Here's why:
Your ferret is still receiving unnecessary carbohydrates and plant matter from kibble, thus spiking their glucose and putting them at risk for Insulinoma.
You are throwing off the nutritional balance of a raw diet, risking an excess/lack of certain nutrients, thus risking health issues in the future. Ferrets may also pick and choose their favorite aspects of the offered raw diet, even further throwing off the nutritional balance.
Feeding kibble and raw simultaneously puts your ferret at risk for severe digestive upset, as each food is processed differently than the other. A ferret's GI system struggles to process kibble, while raw is much more easily digested. It is not uncommon to have severe diarrhea and possibly vomiting when feeding both foods, which can become dangerous if left unmanaged for too long. (It's not uncommon for raw to be the immediate blame for digestive upset, but this can not be further from the case if feeding a properly balanced and human-grade raw.)
The heat process in cooking your ferret's raw diet will destroy many of its nutrients. As long as you are being sanitary with your raw food preparation, sanitize everything the raw meat touches, wash your hands before/after feeding, and follow the guidelines for each type of raw feeding's stability, the risk of food-borne illness to yourself is very low. As described in The Science Behind Diet , a ferret can not become sick from a raw diet so long as the meat you are offering them is human-grade and you are handling their food properly.