Parasites in raw meat

[weloveourweasels]

What are the chances of parasites infecting raw meat. If frozen won't it kill them. I am an active member of Yahoo Answers and I always tell people when asking about treats since ferrets are carnivores if you can get them to eat it raw meat is the ideal treat for them. This girl gave me thumbs down and said in her post to not feed them raw meat because of parasites. Can anyone give me any links on this information. I know if it was a huge problem at all you all wouldn't feed it to them but obviously it isn't because ferrets on this forum never get sick from food that I am aware of.

[Forum Administrator]

The risk of parasites in raw meat is minimal, ESPECIALLY if you freeze the meat and you are getting the meat from a reputable source. Think about it, if you buying meat that you would feed yoru family it better NOT have freaking parasites in it! Ew!

Freezing the meat kills most (if not all) parasites, just like cooking the meat would. Only freezing is in no way as damaging to the nutrients in the meat as cooking is. Some nutrients decrease slightly when freezing things (such as taurine) but not as significantly as if one were to cook the meat.

Wild game meats might contain parasites, but again, freezing for a few months will kill all parasites (just not bacteria). Pork is the main meat that people worry about with parasites. Trichinosis is relatively uncommon today though, and again, freezing the meat deters this problem.

The last thing to do that is important is to have your ferret's feces checked for parasites when you go in for your yearly (or bi-yearly) check up. I do this every year for my animals and I have never once had an incidence of them having a SINGLE worm in their feces.

Oh, and while Holistic Ferret doesnt recommend the use of harsh parasite preventatives (except for heartworm preventative), if you choose to have your ferret on a mutli-parasite preventative, then you really dont need to worry about worms. revolution is commonly used on ferrets for heartworm preventative, if the ferret is on revolution I *think* they also have protection from several intestinal parasites as well, but don't quote me on that. If not revolution there ARE other products out there that ferret owners use for preventative that DO have an internal parasite preventative.

Here is a link. I'd find you more but I'm off to class. Just google something like "raw pet diet, parasite risk". You can probably find stuff if you look hard enough

rawfed.com/myths/parasites.html

[weloveourweasels]

Giuli.