Blog

More profile customizations!

by ferretpapa Apr 3, 2023

The number one feature requested on my feedback form so far has been more profile customizations!

I've added several new fonts and you can now preview the fonts in the dropdown. You can also choose bold or normal font weight. If you have a specific font you'd like me to add, just comment on this post or submit the feedback form and I'll try to add it (specifically anything from Adobe Fonts).

I also added a couple more settings like setting a separate font for your custom links, and customizing the text color for your ferrets (previously you could only set the background color and the text color would always be white, which didn't work well for light colored backgrounds). And finally I fixed a few bugs so that your bio will use the "body font", and fixed bugs where the shapes wouldn't preview correctly.

What else would you like to be able to customize? Link button size, shadow? Let me know in the comments!

Similar foods

by ferretpapa Mar 12, 2023

I'm working on mapping which foods are most similar to each other. You can see this by clicking on any food and scrolling to the bottom of the page. The intended purpose for this is if you're feeding something that has gone out of stock and need to find a replacement. As we all know, ferrets are extremely picky, and getting them to try something new is difficult!

It will only show foods that are the same type (kibble, canned, etc.) and have the same primary protein source (chicken, duck, lamb, etc.).

From there it looks at all of the foods that match those 2 criteria and compares the meat, protein, and fat percentages, and the protein-to-fat ratio. So really, it's just comparing similar analysis but not ingredients.

For raw and canned foods, this is probably enough. These are usually 90+% meat-based anyways, so as long as they share the same primary animal protein, they should taste similar. For kibbles though, those filler ingredients like corn, potatoes, and so on have a huge effect on the flavor of the food.

So this is still a work in progress, the next version will also look at all the individual ingredients and see which ones they have in common.

Just remember though, ferrets will always be picky. Even if two foods are almost identical, they may turn their nose up at them. An example I've witnessed among my own ferrets is feeding the Ziwipeak chicken cat food vs. Ziwipeak chicken dog food. You couldn't possibly find two foods that are more similar. Literally the only differences are in the size of the pieces and the vitamin and mineral additives. But they'll refuse to eat one or the other.

So if your go-to kibble is out of stock and you're being forced to try something new, you might as well go for a healthier option.

Tracking changes in foods

by ferretpapa Feb 20, 2023

Today I just launched a new feature where I can keep track of all the changes in the different foods.

Here's an example, for Ziwipeak air-dried mackerel and lamb. Ziwi recently updated all of their air-dried recipes. Some of the protein, fat, and fiber percentages were also slightly changed. And the old URLs to their products were also broken.

This will only be for new changes moving forward, so unfortunately any past recipe changes are lost.

In the future I'm hoping to let you "watch" certain foods so that you get notified of changes. For now, when you view a food, if there have been changes since I started tracking it, a "History" section will appear at the bottom of the page with more details.

Article series and artwork

by ferretpapa Jan 15, 2023

As I've been writing more articles, I've noticed it's getting a little hard to find any structure and read through them.

So today I added new article series which group related articles together and in an order that makes sense.

Please check them out and let me know what you think!

Update: You can also now search articles, so that should make it easier to find what you're looking for.

Finally, I'm working on awarding badges when you complete a series.

I'm also super excited to announce that Katelyn McManis is making custom artwork for my articles. Hopefully the text and artwork will be published in a book someday.

How to support this website

by ferretpapa Mar 21, 2022

I just started a Ko-fi page where you can support me with one-time or monthly donations ☺️

Support me on Ko-fi

You can also shop using one of these referral links (preferably Chewy) or any of the links from my food chart, and I'll earn a small commission.

Shop Chewy.com Shop at Petco

Every ferret around the world deserves a happy, healthy life, and I will always share as much as I can for free. My email and Instagram DMs are always open as well if people have questions.

However, donations will help me to support my own rescued ferrets and to free up my time to work on research, writing, and developing my website.

All of my ferrets except Auri have been adopted from the GCFA, many of them already on their last legs when I take them home. The GCFA has a foster program which covers vet bills, but I don't take part in this program - aside from some medications, I pay for all of my ferrets out of my own pocket (my lovely vet still gives me the shelter discount though).

In 2021 I had over $10,000 in vet bills that I paid for myself. In 2022 my vet bills have added up to $15,000 and counting.

My current focus is to write more articles and flesh out the ones that are currently there. If my content is enjoyable or useful to you, please consider supporting me!

Thank you in advance for your support!