Artwork by Katelyn McManis for www.ferret.love. Do not reproduce without permission.

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Soup, or "soupies", is basically any warm, liquid, meat-based food for ferrets. It can be given as a treat to healthy ferrets, but also has a ton of uses for sick ferrets, for example:

• A malnourished ferret that needs to gain weight
• A ferret with insulinoma that needs help keeping its blood sugar up
• A ferret that has just had surgery (especially GI surgery, from a blockage for example) that needs easily-digestible food to recover
• It can also help mask the taste of medicine

I can't stress enough how important it is to give your ferrets soup before they get sick.

Ferrets are notoriously picky, and many sick ferrets will only eat soup. It's warm, comforting, and easy to digest. If you get them to look forward to it regularly before they get sick, their road to recovery will be much smoother. Trying to force a sick ferret to try a new food is unpleasant for all parties involved.

Why's it called "soupies"?

Soupies isn't just a cute nickname. I call it that specifically so that people don't confuse it with actual soup. I've heard of one person who fed her ferret canned Campbell's chicken soup when it was sick, because she had read about giving chicken soup online. (English was not her first language.)

Never give your ferret any kind of canned human soup! These will contain all sorts of things that are bad for your ferret, but especially high sodium levels.

How to make soupies?

The nice thing about soupies is that there is no required recipe. It just needs to be liquid. And I recommend using some kind of cooked food (e.g. cooked meat, kibble, or canned cat food), not raw, because it's easier for them to digest. For their primary diet it's best for them to eat raw, but for soupies, which is just a treat or temporary diet, it's ok to use cooked food.

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Simple soupie recipes

These are in order from best (healthiest) to worst:

Cooked chicken

Pros: delicious! All of my ferrets love this and beg for it constantly. It has a very strong flavor which masks most medicines. Plus since you are in control of where you're acquiring the chicken, you know that it's fresh and human-grade.
Cons: definitely the most work, although it's worth it. Not a complete and balanced diet, although it's very nutritional, it's missing liver and heart.

Canned foods

Any high quality canned food blended with water. Generally one can of food with 1/2 a can of water is good, although you may need to add some more water so that it's not too thick.

Please be cautious - many canned foods contain peas which are deadly for ferrets. And there are plenty of low quality canned foods as well. Make sure to check my chart to see what I recommend.

Pros: easy to find, easy to blend, balanced diet
Cons: nothing really

Kibble soupies

Any high quality kibble blended into powder and mixed with warm water. You'll have to find an appropriate water to kibble ratio through trial and error. In general it's best for the soup to be as liquid as possible.

Pros: easy to find kibbles, fully balanced diet
Cons: not the healthiest, some kibbles don't blend well (e.g. Wysong), soup usually settles and is not the best consistency

Baby food

Any human baby food that has limited ingredients, e.g. Beech-Nut chicken & chicken broth. If it has vegetables or fruits in it, don't use it.

Pros: easy to find, already blended and mixed, just need to add water
Cons: not a balanced diet, more expensive per ounce

• Health
• Treats