What evidence is there that ferrets are carnivores?
By Bob Church: First, the digestive system of the ferret is very short. There is no caecum (a pouch or tube at the junction where the large intestine meets the small intestine), nor appendix, and the junction between small and large bowel is not visually apparent. This is not uncommon in highly carnivorous mammals, including sea mammals and many specialized carnivores. In contrast, the caecum of herbivores is often very large, and can form pouches quite long relative to the length of the large intestine. The determining factor in the length of the caecum appears to be the amount of ingested cellulose in the typical (averaged) diet. The more cellulose ingested by the species, the longer the caecum tends to be. The ferret’s problem in digesting plants are threefold; first they lack a caecum to hold the bacteria which breaks down the cellulose, second, they lack several of the enzymes found in the rumin of most plant-eaters, and third, the passage time from oral- to anal-aperture is too f
