Question about Fox Valley 20/50

[Flavy]

Hi everyone,

I am currently re-habbing 2 baby eastern grey squirrels (about 4 wks old, eyes still closed), and I've been reading all this wealth of info on this board about nutrition and formula. I started wih Esbilac puppy and today started making the transition to Fox Valley 20/50 (as it just arrived) because of the Esbilac problems 2019 sticky.

So I was reading the ingredients of both Esbilac and FV formulas today and I am confused why FV is so much better? First of all, I noticed Esbilac has cream as 3rd ingredient while FV has yucky corn syrup solids, and second, Esbilac has probiotics added (which I read is very important to squirrelies) while FV has none.

Can anyone enlighten me please? I am especially worried about the lack of probiotics...

Much appreciated, thank you in advance!!

[HRT4SQRLS]

Trust us on this. When the Esbilac worked, it was fine. That’s not the question.
At this time Esbilac is defective and is killing hundreds of babies.

Esbilac is a puppy formula. Fox Valley was made specifically for squirrels. While the FV 32:40 has had problems of its own, the Fox Valley 20:50 has consistently given good results. In the spring I used Esbilac. I had great results. No one had issues with Esbilac in the spring. Currently I have 3 on Fox Valley 20:50. To be honest with you, I just lucked out with the formula choice with these 3. The first one came in on FV so I decided to continue it with all of them. I am so thankful I did. I don’t rehab a lot of babies so I can’t offer up statistics of E vs FV with numbers to back it up. All I can tell you is that I have 3 of the most beautiful 12 week old Fox Valley babies I have ever raised. In the future I will only use Fox Valley. I will never use another PetAg product. PetAg has a long history of defective formula with most of their product lines including Esbilac, Zoologic and KMR.

As far as probiotics you can take this for what it’s worth, it is my opinion that probiotics are over rated. If an animal is on antibiotics, of course, probiotics are a good thing. Frankly I see no reason why probiotics need to be added to formula. When probiotics are added to formula, how do we know that XYZ combo of organisms are the appropriate ones for that species. Have the probiotics in Esbilac been optimized for puppies? If so, how does that translate to squirrels? We just don’t know the answers to these questions. My opinion is that probiotics are not necessary in formula.

[Flavy]

Thank you for your response! :grin2