Pet Ferrets

What super little characters they spend 14 to 18 hours a day sleeping and are naturally crepuscular, meaning they are most active during dusk and dawn. They usually sleep in six hour sections. Though ferrets sleep more than most other domesticated animals, they are very active when awake and will seek to be released from their cage to get exercise and satisfy their abundant curiosity daily.

Ferrets are energetic, curious, interested in their surroundings, and often actively solicit play with humans, having a repertoire of behaviours both endearing and difficult for some human owners.

Play for a ferret will often involve hide-and-seek games, or some form of predator/prey game in which either the human attempts to catch the ferret or the ferret to catch the human. They also have a strong nesting instinct and will repeatedly carry small objects to hidden locations. It is difficult to predict what objects ferrets will attempt to hoard, with owners reporting play toys, socks, bags of onions, pizza slices, keys, calculators, silverware, aluminium foil, shoes, sponges, toilet paper rolls, textbooks, video game controllers, footballs, brooms, pencils, erasers, bouncy balls, etc. Ferrets will seemingly form attachments to certain objects and will repeatedly 'steal' the same object and bring it to their hiding place.

When ferrets are excited, they may perform a routine commonly referred to as the weasel war dance, a frenzied series of sideways hops. This is often accompanied by a soft clucking noise, commonly referred to as dooking. It is often an invitation to play or an expression of happy excitement and is not threatening. The ferret's posture may become rigid with wide open jaws, momentary eye contact followed by thrashing or turning of the head from side to side, arching the back, piloerection, and hopping to the side or backwards while facing the intended playmate. This is often accompanied by an excited panting sound that may sound like a hiss. Often, this behaviour will break into a game of chase, pounce and wrestle. Ferrets in war dances are very accident prone, often hopping into obstacles or tripping over their own feet.

Ferrets tend to nip as kits. Nipping is the act of biting in a playful manner representative of mock fighting and sparring; young ferrets are also more prone to chewing and teething, and have a tendency to bite harder. Older ferrets tend to chew far less frequently and, when trained correctly, almost never nip a human hand or only do so very gently. However, ferrets that have been abused or are in extreme pain may bite a human, and are capable of strong bites which break through the skin.

Ferrets, like cats, can use a litter box with training, but they are not always completely litter box trainable. Their instinct is to spread their waste in order to scent mark a wider foraging territory for themselves; thus, multiple litter boxes may be necessary, and all litter areas should be changed frequently.

Ferrets are obligate carnivores. The natural diet of their wild ancestors consisted of whole small prey, i.e., meat, organs, bones, skin, feathers, and fur. Some ferret owners feed a meat-based diet consisting of whole prey like mice and rabbits along with raw meat like chicken, beef, veal, kangaroo and wallaby. This is preferred in Europe and Australia, and becoming increasingly popular in the United States due to concern over high carbohydrate levels in some processed ferret foods.

Ferrets For Dummies

Alternatively, there are many commercial ferret food products. Some kitten foods can also be used, so long as they provide the high protein and fat content required by the ferret's metabolism; high-quality commercial ferret foods are preferred to kitten foods by many ferret owners because the foods are geared more toward a ferret's metabolism than to a cat's. Most adult cat foods and kitten foods are unsuitable for ferrets however, because of their low protein content and high fibre Ideally, a ferret food should contain a minimum of 32% meat based protein and 18% fat and a maximum 3% fibre Low-quality pet foods often contain grain-based proteins, which ferrets cannot properly digest and result in lower nutrition leading to increased food intake and more waste.

Ferrets may have a fondness for sweets like raisins, bananas, peanut butter, and pieces of cereal. The high sugar content of such treats has been linked to ferret insulinoma and other diseases. Veterinarians recommend not feeding raisins and the like to ferrets at all. Also, like many other carnivores, ferrets gradually lose the ability to digest lactose after they are weaned. As a result, lactose-free milk is to be prefer.

Ferret curiosity often exceeds common sense and ferrets are good at getting into holes in walls, doors, cupboards, or in or behind household appliances such as clothes dryers and dishwashers, where they can be injured or killed by drowning, electrical wiring, fans, and other household items. Many enjoy chewing items made of soft rubber, foam, or sponge, which present the risk of intestinal blockage and death if ingested. Serious and sometimes fatal injuries have resulted from ferrets chewing on electrical cords. Screen doors can be damaged by a ferret's claws, and dryer vents often become escape routes to the outdoors.

Unlike dogs and cats, many ferrets display little homing instinct and do not thrive as strays. Ferret owners frequently train ferrets at a young age to respond to clicker toys, squeaky toys, or to the sound of their own food being shaken, as a means of recovering a ferret which has ventured too far from its home. In all cases, the escape of a ferret should be addressed immediately, as wandering ferrets may be easily injured or killed by neighbourhood animals, local wildlife, or passing vehicles.

Recliners and fold-out sofas are a leading cause of accidental death in ferrets. Ferrets will often climb inside the springs and can be injured or killed once the chair is put into a reclined position. For these reasons, owners usually "ferret-proof" their home, the task of carefully going through each room, removing items dangerous to ferrets and covering over any holes or potential escape routes. As ferrets can open improperly latched cupboards or doors by rolling over and clawing at the bottom edge, childproof latches are often used and owners keep cleaning products in high, out-of-reach places. However, ferrets can typically fit through any hole as small as the size of their head, making some childproof latches ineffective.

When a ferret is outdoors, an owner must take additional care during mosquito and tick season, as ferrets are susceptible to the diseases carried by these parasites. Ticks can attach themselves and begin to draw blood. When the tick gets full, it regurgitates some blood and tick saliva back into the ferret, which is how Lyme and other diseases can be transmitted. Ordinarily, the regurgitation happens between five to 24 hours after the tick attaches. Early removal of ticks using proper methods to avoid tick regurgitation, and prevention when in environments where encountering ticks is essential.

Additionally, mosquitoes may carry heart worms and the West Nile virus. Fleas can cause extreme skin irritation and can be intermediate hosts for tapeworms, one of which may kill a ferret because of their small size. Similarly, the venom of a bee, wasp or spider is much more serious for a ferret than for a larger mammal, and ferrets can be regarded as prey by birds of prey, and by large snakes (obviously depending on where you live!).

Ferrets are fearless to the point of foolishness and should not be allowed to wander. Whenever they are outside, they should be closely supervised and preferably kept on a harness leash designed for ferrets such as an H-shaped harness. Their curious nature also leads them to place themselves in situations where they will confront and try to play with larger animals outdoors that may be dangerous to your ferret.
 

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