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ok well there are no posts in this subforum! 3nodding SOOO my ferrets poop smells. I mean, REALLY smells. I'm not sure I'm entirely satisfied with the food i'm giving them, for one thing, and i'm wondering if that's the issue.

I took them into the vet awhile back because one of them was having green slimey poops (which smells worse than anything OMG) and i was really worried. Well, it just turned out to be Charles being stressed because Cain is younger and he wasn't used to the harassment. Antibiotics fixed it just fine.

Well...the poop still smells heinous. I mean, whatever, i clean it out like twice a day and such and i can deal with it, but if there's a reason for the smelliness i'd like to fix it.

SO my first question is, does anyone have a brand of food they just love to no end? Better yet, does anyone have a brand of food that seems to make the poop less smelly?

I'm really inclined to think it's their food, because so far, any time i have changed their food, it changes the smell of the poop. But i don't know. any suggestions or anything would be greatly appreciated. heart

well... where to start...

ok, about food... that normally is up to my ferrets. they can be picky little boogers sometimes and refuse to eat a certain kind of kibble. for me, if they eat it... it's a good day. and since my fuz have been so picky, i've tried just about every kibble under the sun at one point or another. no matter what they are eating, the poop always smells the same-ish...

except when it's a kit. for whatever reason, when they are little guys the poop is horrible smelling. once the kit gets settled in and eating normal and grows up just a little, that gets better.

as for the comment about other owners have stinkier ferrets... i don't know if this is true for you, but i noticed for me they smell just like all the other ferrets, but i'm so use to how my group smells that it doesn't smell that bad to me anymore. if that makes sense. o.o; when i first got the ferrets and i just walked in the front door it was like "ACK FERRET STINK x___X " but now after a few years of the same cleaning methods i hardly notice. friends who come over often hardly notice... but my mother in law who (thankfully) does not come over so often says it smells heridous all the time and it's the ferrets who smell that bad. *shrug* i can't tell anymore.

oh! another thing... you might already have heard this... but they are related to skunks and that that the smell is an odor gland and blah blah blah. anyways, when you wash your ferrets, the skin produces more musky smely oil... so in other words, unless they need a bath (like they have something really icky they slept in or something along those lines) bad, it's good to not give them a bath for a few months at a time. some people think more baths= cleaner less smelly. that might be why some of those other ferrets smelled worse... not because they were dirty, but because they had been cleaned up. eek

thanks for the replies! i appreciate it. uhm...atm the moment i'm being a bad mom and feeding them this Ferret brand stuff (they seem to like it, but to me it doesn't seem the best quality and once i'm not broke out of my mind i want to switch to something that looks a bit better...) that I don't know much about.

Honestly it's not bad, and they like it. But I think my ferrets will eat anything lol, and I want to feed them something nutritious, I can cheap out on my diet but I don't want to do it to them.

My biggest problem is, I've been trying to read up on ferret diets and such, and everyone talks about how they're carnivors and all, but I have no idea what I should be looking for on their food labels!

I think kits are still considered kits until they reach around 2 years old. Because that's when they're almost halfway through their lives...like 3-4 is halfway. So under a year, yeah, your babies are still...babies. smile

All poo smells pretty bad...but I feed mine Totally Ferret and it doesn't seem so bad. But recently I started mixing it, like 50% Totally Ferret and 50% Iams Kitten Chow. I heard from the shelter where I adopted two of mine that mixing it is a good idea. Also read in a ferret magazine that it's not a good idea. So i'm kinda torn...
ANYWAY, back to topic, I guess Totally Ferret poops aren't so smelly. What do you use?

cool, thanks guys! i used zupreem for awhile, and i liked it (i use zupreem for my parakeet's food so i really like the company), but i'm sort of leaning towards trying out totally ferret soon. i've just heard a lot of good things about it.

yeah i've tried that stuff and saw no change in my ferrets. BUT for some odd reason the smells have gone down drastically! i'm so excited, i think part of it is i changed the litter, and they're finally completely adjusted to their food. but that's my guess.

yep i'm lovin the yesterdays news. my husband is all sad because the last brand we used came with a free rolly ball in every bag lol. but the ferrets didn't like it much anyways.

but yeah, i used the bioder until it was gone...maybe it would help now but i don't really need it now lol

yesterdays news. it's what we used to use in the vet clinics i worked in for declawed cats but it just never occurred to me. i only bought it because i was tight on money and had a gift card to target, and that's the only brand they carry. MAN am i glad that happened tho lol