#raw diets

Here are a few posts about raw diets that sum everything up pretty well :)

Pathogen concerns

A DrFerox compilation

And older but still pretty good summary about my concerns with raw diets

vet-and-wild here.

Ah, now there is a subject of debate. Let me start out by saying that there is no universally agreed upon diet for ferrets, and no full diet trials to say which diet is "best". We do have some research and data collection, but there's definitely still disagreement.

Let's look at what a ferret needs. Ferrets are obligate carnivores (meaning they need animal protein) with a very simple and short GI tract. Their small intestines are about 5x the length of their body...compared to 8-10x in a cat! It's basically a simple tube from stomach to rectum.

They have high protein and moderate fat requirements, and actually don't tolerate carbohydrate levels as high as a cat (another domesticated obligate carnivore) can. Ferrets don't do well with cereal grains, and pea proteins have been linked to bladder stone formation. Even their dentition (which is super impressive for such a tiny animal) screams "predator" and is designed for shearing, not grinding.

High carb diets are also thought to contribute to the development of insulinomas, one of the most common diseases ferrets get. However, abnormal pancreatic tissue (where these tumors occur) has been found in ferrets as young as 2 weeks, so it is not likely a solely nutritional influence. Anecdotally, I have also discussed this with boarded small mammal vets and exotics vets in other countries, where raw diets are more common. None of them have felt that they've seen a significant difference in the incidence of insulinomas in raw fed vs commercially fed ferrets. But that is all anecdotal; we don't have any studies on that, unfortunately.

The best overview and discussion on ferret nutrition that I've found has been Johnson-Delaney, C. A. (2014). Ferret nutrition. Vet Clin North Am Exot Anim Pract, 17(3), 449-70. (If you want to read the full summary I did a post on it here) and here are the most important tidbits:

1. A raw diet may be the most biologically appropriate...but hold on to that for now.

2. Ferrets eat many small meals throughout the day and cache their food.

3. There are no reports of nutritional deficiencies in ferrets on an appropriate ferret or high quality cat diet, unless they were overfed supplements that unbalanced the diet.

4. We know that cats can tolerate carbohydrates up to 40% in their diets, and ferrets have an even shorter GI tract than them (meaning we think the number is lower but probably don't know exactly where the cut off is).

5. A ferret's physical condition will suffer if their dietary protein is <30%.

6. 15-30% fat is sufficient but up to 40% has shown to be tolerated well.

7. Cereal grains are not digestible and fruits/veggies have minimal nutritional value.

8. Kibble may reduce dental tartar, but it also may cause abnormal wear on the teeth.

So with all that in mind, some vets do recommend a raw diet. Even Oxbow, a trusted small mammal nutrition company, recommends raw diets for ferrets...

...but it's not that simple.

Here's where the problems come in:

1. Raw diets pose a health risk to immunocompromised humans or animals.

2. Nutrient deficiencies are seen only with home prepared diets, not commercial diets (unless excess supplementation occurs).

2b. Vitamin overdoses have also only been seen with home prepared diets.

3. A ferret's tendency to eat small meals and cache their food often makes feeding raw meat impractical at best, and a dangerous health risk at worse.

4. There is no studied or agreed upon protocol for balancing a home prepared ferret diet, meaning a lot of it is guess work.

5. Ferrets are not polecats in the same way that dogs are not wolves. They have been domesticated for thousands of years, and particularly in the US, bred and raised primarily on poor quality diets (Marshal Farms). So feeding a ferret like a polecat doesn't make any more sense than feeding a dog like a wolf...and we really don't know the impact of Marshal's inbreeding and mass production, at least in terms of changes in the GI tract.

So it comes down to raw is probably more biologically appropriate, but carries a lot of risks if you do it wrong. And on top of that, we don't have great data on how to do it right. I don't fault my colleagues for recommending raw diets for ferrets (at least compared to cats or dogs...), but I'm not personally at a point where I think it is preferable. We need diet trials and more regulation of who is formulating these diets, but I don't think the answer is to have every ferret owner in the country start tossing frozen/thawed c*hicks or r*odents into their ferret's cage. A lot of commercial ferret foods are garbage, but we have 0 actual evidence that a raw food diet is any better. Actually, we have 0 evidence of that in any species.

How is a whole rat not complete? I’m not really understanding here. Isn’t whole prey as complete as it gets?

Whole prey is complete in itself in terms of muscle/bone/organ percentages, but you still need variety for an optimal complete diet - If you were going to do only whole prey for a cat, you could feed rats, mice, chicks, quail, etc. But that adds up pretty quickly because whole prey is quite expensive, though it’d be cheaper if you raised your own. One type of prey would probably be fine for a while, but not a great idea for long-term. 

Most people that I know of typically feed frankenprey + occasional whole prey if at all (which was what the ask was describing), but it’s still heavily recommended to feed at least 3 different types of proteins because different animals have varying levels of some nutrients. And red meat is more nutrient-dense than chicken & other poultry, so it’s recommended to have more red meat than white in the diet.

The reason we aren't all running out and starting to recommend raw diets after reading a random article on a holistic pet food website (who is also trying to sell something) is because the data is incomplete. It's not even always bad, it's just that people read one or two sentences from the abstract and claim it as a "gotcha" for commercial pet food. And yet, when you actually go and read the study you'll find that there was no control for breed, lifestyle, age, supplements, etc and that usually the study itself even says something along the lines of "further investigation is needed to determine the significance of X finding." Many of these studies also acknowledge their own limitations and potential confounding variables.

Oh I have a lot of opinions. The gist of it is that raw feeding CAN be done responsibly, but there are zero, let me repeat ZERO actual scientifically backed reasons to feed a dog raw. There are no peer reviewed studies actually confirming the benefits of raw, it’s all anecdotal. Again, let me repeat, there are no PEER REVIEWED STUDIES actually confirming the benefits of raw feeding. Every time I answer an ask like this someone sends me a link to a YouTube channel or some random person who is collecting “data” about raw fed dogs with no actual control or real setup. Those aren’t studies.

So we’ve established there’s no evidence of the supposed benefits, but what about detriments? Yup, those we do know about. Raw diets are a public health risk, and it frustrates me to no end that I have never once seen anyone advocating for a raw diet actually bring up these concerns. One veterinary school found that 40% of dogs on a raw diet were asymptomatically shedding salmonella. Additionally, raw diets are usually unbalanced. Unless you actually work with a veterinary nutritionist, there is a very good chance that the diet is missing nutrients. >90% (I think it may have even been 95%) of the home prepared diets (both raw and  cooked) that the nutrition service at my school saw were deficient in at least one major nutrient. Raw diets have also been implicated along with grain free diets with DCM. The link is unclear but they may be involved. Dogs aren’t wolves. They diverged tens of thousands of years ago. Feeding a dog like a wolf makes about as much sense as feeding a wolf like a dog.

So given that there are multiple risks and NO evidence of benefits, I do not recommend it. Part of a veterinarian’s job is protecting public health, and raw diets directly go against that. I also get extremely frustrated when anyone, be they amateur or vet, claim that any one diet is “best”. There’s no such thing as a best diet because every animal is different and every situation is different. Also promoting a raw diet for a patient that you’ve never seen is practicing medicine, which is illegal without a client-doctor relationship. Sorry, that’s a bit of a tangent but it pisses me off that people in my profession do that.

There are many breeders who will claim that their breed needs a raw diet but none of it is proven. The only exception I would make would be mid+ content wolfdogs, and even then we don’t actually have data, that’s just my own experience with wolves speaking. Dogs are dogs. There are definitely breed differences but once again, there is no proof that raw diets are necessary or even any better for any dogs, let alone specific breeds. Another thing that gets me is that people will say that a breed needs a raw diet because of allergies/sensitivities. Food allergies aren’t actually all that common, and chicken and beef are the most common culprits. Not grains. So when I see someone screaming about allergies and then feeding their dog a whole chicken thigh, I know they literally have no idea what they’re talking about. Same with people who won’t feed commercial dog food because hurr durr byproducts are bad and then turn around and feed organ meat to their dog.

And tbh, a lot of my issue with raw feeding is the movement itself. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve had raw feeders politely disagree and have an actual conversation with me. 99% of the time I post something like this I get yelled at, insulted, told bullshit conspiracy theories about being “paid off” by pet food companies, told that “vets don’t know about nutrition”, have pseudoscience thrown in my face, and basically told I’m “poisoning” dogs. This happens to me on basically every type of social media and sometimes in real life. No one could possibly think that maybe, just MAYBE if nearly an entire profession agrees about something then maybe because it’s based on the most current science and not because an entire profession is corrupt. Also there seems to be a stupid superiority complex a lot of times. The mentality that you’re not a good dog owner if you’re not feeding raw/grain free/$80 dog food. It’s stupid and not based on any kind of facts. Also these people with no nutritional training telling people THEY DON’T KNOW to switch to raw, even going as far as telling people to drop their prescription diets without consulting their vet. NO. You don’t know an animal’s medical history. You don’t know if there’s anyone immunocompromised in that house. And raw diets are NOT replacements for actual medicine/prescription diets.

Oh boy I’m about to open a huge can of worms so buckle up! The short answer is no, I don’t support raw diets. The long answer to follow, I just want to say that this is a topic I’m very passionate about, so if anything I say comes across kind of harsh, it’s not directed at you OP, it’s just my general frustration about this whole topic.

1. Feeding raw is a public health concern. It is estimated that around 30% of dogs that are fed raw diets are carriers for Salmonella at any time. Salmonella can cause illness in both humans and animals. Proper environmental hygiene is imperative if you’re going to feed raw, and unfortunately most people do not have a thorough disinfection protocol nor do they understand how to make one. People generally disinfect bowls (though not necessarily thoroughly enough), but neglect to consider the other surfaces raw food may have contacted. Prep counters, wall or floor splatter, sinks, utensils, poorly washed human hands, collars or accessories on an animal, and the animal itself can all be sources of contamination. Another factor is that a lot of dogs like to pick up part of their meal and eat it in a different room, or away from their bowl, which could potentially contaminate other areas of a house. And think about cats, who like to groom themselves after a meal. Other potential harmful (and zoonotic) pathogens found in raw meat include E. Coli, Campylobacter, Sarcocystis, Clostridium, Neospora, Toxoplasma gondii, Echinococcus, and Cryptosporidium. This is is a risk that is especially serious for immunocompromised individuals, and there is a very problematic lack of discussion about this factor amongst proponents of feeding raw. Now, you might be thinking “hey, there have been processed food recalls due to Salmonella contamination!” That is true, but the difference is that there are sampling protocols in place to detect for Salmonella, and protocols in place to deal with positive samples. There is no such oversight for raw pet food.

2. Raw food diets are often not nutritionally complete. Diets that are not nutritionally balanced place a pet at risk of serious complications from nutrient deficiencies. The fact is, most owners do not have the educational background to properly formulate a diet, and neither do the people that often recommend them. Just because a diet “worked for my pets for X years!” doesn’t mean that it will work for you. It doesn’t even mean that the diet was balanced. The owner may not have been aware of the signs of deficiency in their pet. Or, their pet may have been able to compensate, but that doesn’t mean another pet will be able to. At the very least, look for the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) seal of approval that the food is suitable for all stages/whatever stage of life your animal is in.

3. There are no peer-reviewed studies that have proven the benefits of raw food. At this point, evidence in favor of raw pet food is anecdotal. I like science. I like real, repeatable proof that something works. And here in lies the problem. There are all these potential issues with feeding raw, and NO proof that it has any of the benefits proponents claim. This right here is why, in general, veterinarians are not fond of raw diets. Owners choose to feed a diet that is a public health risk, potentially unbalanced, and even dangerous (if you feed bones there is a risk of obstruction and tooth fractures) without any solid evidence that there are any benefits for their pet.

4. Kind of going along with #2, the majority of the information about raw diets is gathered over the internet is from people who are not qualified to be giving nutritional advice. Proponents of feeding raw often have limited or no training in animal physiology, PROPER diet balancing, or animal nutrition. “I have X years of experience” is not a good enough qualification. Yes, experience is great, but if you have been practicing incorrectly for X years it means nothing except that you have a false sense of confidence in your abilities. Bonus: even if they are qualified, they do not know your animal’s health or the status of immunocompromised individuals in your environment. I actually have a HUGE problem with veterinarians that offer specific nutritional advice over the internet. As a veterinarian, we cannot give medical advice to an animal we have not seen in person–there has to be a doctor-client relationship. So it makes me absolutely furious that professionals in my field give blanket statements about “food A is better than food B always”. Nutrition is medicine. There is no way for a veterinarian over the internet to know that raw food is the best option for your pet. They don’t know your animal’s health status (particularly if the high protein diet is safe for them). They don’t know if you have kids, or elderly, or immunocompromised people in your life. I’m actually really angry that I’ve never seen a warning to immunocompromised individuals from a veterinarian giving nutritional advice online, and I rarely see good food safety advice. Sorry. Side rant.

5. The argument that raw diets are just “more natural” and therefore better just does not make sense. “Natural” is kind of a buzzword that human and animal food companies use to sell you their product. AAFCO states that “natural products  cannot  contain  chemically  synthesized  ingredients,  except  for  trace  nutrients, the presence of which must be declared.” That’s super vague. It’s becoming a popular mantra that “natural is better”, but “natural” is poorly defined and benefits are often based upon anecdotal evidence (see number 3).

With all that in mind, I do want to point out that it is possible to feed a raw diet correctly and responsibly. How? Talk to your veterinarian. They know your animal’s health history and they can advise you on public health concerns. Yes, most veterinarians will try to steer you away from feeding raw. Why? See above. But if you are adamant that you want to feed raw anyway, your vet will absolutely prefer that you work with them to ensure that you, your animal, and the public are safe. You can also refer to a veterinary nutritionist, who will have extra training and education relating to pet nutrition to help you make a decision that is right for you and your pet. There are also situations where feeding raw may absolutely be the best option for your pet, but strangers over the internet (myself included–I don’t know anything about you or your pets), or Joe Schmo down the street are in no way qualified to make this decision for you. It’s also worth noting that raw diets are a concept that older vets may not be familiar with. It is only in recent years that they have become more popular, and therefore are just starting to be incorporated into our education.

With regards to your final statement about big name brands “poisoning dogs and cats”, I’m honestly not sure what you mean. Are you referring to recalls? There are certainly companies that seem to be more prone to recalls than others, but as discussed above, that doesn’t make raw diets any safer. I don’t really know where this “pet foods are poising pets” idea came from, as I do not know of any evidence of a particularly high or increased incidence of pets being killed from contaminated pet food. Are you referring to the lower standards of regulation of pet food as compared to human food? Raw food is significantly less regulated than processed food, so you won’t be any better off there. Are you referring to pets developing allergies? Most allergies are to animal products, so feeding raw won’t be useful there either.