We recommend Vitalin Ferret Food. You may order this food online at www.vitalinpetfood.co.uk or by phone 0870 0624447.
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FERRET FACTS & FIGURES
- Average Adult Weight: Hobs 1-2 kg; Jills 0.5-1.2kg
- Seasonal Weight Fluctuation: Approx 30% difference between winter and summer body weight
- Lifespan: 6-10 years (although up to 13 years has been reported)
- Diploid Chromosome Number: 40
- Adult Dentition: 34
- Adult Food Intake: (Dry Feed) 50-75 grams per day
- Adult Water Intake: 75-100mls per day
- Urine Output: 26-28ml per 24 hour average; Jills more often
- Urine pH: 6.5-7.5 (i.e. near neutral pH)
- Heart Rate: 170-380 beats per minute
- Cardiac Output: 139ml per minute
- Circulation Time: 4.5-6.8 seconds
- Blood Volume: 5-7% bodyweight
- Systolic Blood Pressure: (mm Hg) 140+ / -35
- Diastolic Blood Pressure: (mm Hg) 110+ / -30
- Rectal Temperature: 37.8-40 degrees
- Celsius Respiratory Rate: 33-36 per minute
REPRODUCTIVE DATA
- Puberty (Sexual Maturity): usually 6-9 months, but up to 12 months
- Neutering: from 24 weeks for Hobs, 28 weeks for Jills
- Gestation (Pregnancy): 38-44days, average 42 days
- Breeding Life: up to 7 years
- Breeding Season: Spring/Summer. Typically January/February-July/August
- Litter Size: 6-12 kits, average 8 (smaller when maternal age over 5 years)
- Birth Weight: 6-12 grams
- Kits Onset of Hearing: 32 Days
- Kits Eyes Open: 28-35 Days
- Weaning Age of Mother: Not fully until 8 weeks
- Deciduous Dentition: 30 (Molars Absent) adult dentition by 10 weeks
Recommended book for reference: Lewington, J.H.(2000) Ferret Husbandry,
Medicine and Surgery. Published by Butterworth Heinemann. ISBN 0 7506 42513
INTERESTING TIPS, IDEAS AND METHODS
DO NOT FLICK YOUR FERRETS NOSE or reprimand your ferret in any physical way at all. Use a loud sharp "NO!" close to the ferrets face (without getting your nose bitten). Do this three times, then if it is not working use the "time out" method. Put the nippy ferret into an empty carrier and place it where they can
see their siblings still getting attention and playing . Leave them in there for a couple of minutes, then let them out to play again. If they start getting nippy again start with the "NO!" three times method, then revert to the time out in the carrier for three minutes. Keep useing this routine until you have had them in the carrier for five minutes time out, unless of course they have stopped being nippy and then they can be left out, if this is not working then return them to their cage and leave them there until the next play session. All of this takes time and patience, but ferrets are incredibly intelligent animals and will learn what is acceptable and what isn't before you know it.
If you find that your kit is nipping/biting your hands when you pick them up DO NOT revert to useing gloves, this will just make them worse and they will not get used to your smell or the feel of your hands. Use the loud sharp "NO!" again, thencontinue to make a fuss of them by stroking their backs. Do not put them down on the floor as soon as they nip or else they will think they are getting their own way and will continue to be nippy when ever they want to get down and play. Just keep working at it, stick to a routine and do not move the boundries you set them and before long your ferrets will be settled and content.
Always be aware that if a ferret is being testy, nasty, bitey or generally bad tempered there may well be an underlying problem and it is always an idea, as a precaution, to get them to the vet's just to make sure there is nothing wrong with them.
Ferrets are Carnivores, which means they are natural meat eaters. If you are told not to feed your ferrets meat because it makes them vicious that is NOT true. To maintain healthy teeth and gums a meat and bone diet is essential. Chicken Wings are the cheapest and most easily bought choice for you to feed your ferrets. They will use the smaller bones of the wings as toothbrushes and will eat them all up. NEVER feed your ferret bones that have been cooked, they can splinter in the ferrets mouth and cause considerable damage.
Clean feet and pads with baby wipes.
Clean ears with sensitive baby wipe (NEVER USE COTTON BUDS).
Keep your ferret well handled.
Use a flea comb to brush your ferret’s coat. They pick up more dust and dirt than normal brushes/combs.
Damp living quarters can cause foot rot.
Use Vaseline Petroleum Jelly to kill off ticks. Use a cotton bud and just put a blob of Vaseline on top of the tick. Within a couple of days it will have died and will then drop off.
Rub cooking oil gently into a tick on sensitive areas, such as the face, to release them.
Beware of flea sprays, they can blister the skin.
A little sunflower oil on food helps make the ferret's coat glossy.
Use Ferretvite or Ferretone as a treat distraction when clipping nails or cleaning ears.
BOB CHURCH'S RECIPE
If you have a ferret that is ill, losing weight, its coat is in a bad condition or it is sleeping a lot then the following recipe is a great help. I always have a supply of Bob Church’s Chicken Gravy in my freezer for an emergency and very few ferrets can resist it!!
BOB CHURCH'S CHICKEN GRAVY:
1 whole roasting chicken. (Do not remove the skin, fat, bones or giblets).
1 tablespoon of olive oil.
1 tablespoon of Ferretone.
1 cup of ferret biscuits.
2 tablespoons of fine bran or whole oats.
1 tube of Ferretvite.
3 or 4 eggshells.
4 tablespoons of honey.
1 cup of fat trimmings.
Take the chicken and fat trimmings and cut up into small parts and put everything through the mincer (I get my butcher to mince it for me as my mincer is not powerful enough). Then put the mince into a large pot with two or three cups of water. Cook over a high heat stirring constantly until cooked. Strain the mince saving the juice to use when blending. Start by putting three to four cups of chicken in the blender (you can make it smooth or lumpy. I like it to be thick but smooth). Add the eggshells and ferret biscuits and at this stage start adding the juice for consistency. Keep putting it into the bowl and blend more. Let the mixture cool and add the rest of the ingredients, whisk well, load into ice cube trays (use a teaspoon for this or it gets really messy!) and freeze. Once frozen remove from the ice cube trays and put into a container in the freezer. When needed, take out two cubes per ferret, once a day should be adequate and zap it in the microwave for approx. thirty seconds per cube. You can add water desired consistency or add a small amount of single cream. You may have to syringe feed your ferret to start with, but once they have got the taste they may well start eating it voluntarily. Making it up is a long and arduous process, but when you have a ferret who is refusing to eat and you need something you know contains all the right things for them this is it, so it is well worth the effort. One batch lasts a long time and is well worth having available in the freezer.
A FERRET’S TEETH
A ferret’s teeth are as important to the ferret as they are to us. Similarly perfect teeth should be a full set, white, clean and unbroken. But how many of us can profess to having a perfect set of teeth? The same applies to the ferret, but there are things we can do as ferret owners to make sure they get the best possible chance of having a good set of gnashers!! Short of getting the ferret used to having their teeth brushed daily, the more natural way is through their diet. Ferrets are carnivores and to sustain a good set of teeth one must provide the ferret with FRESH RAW MEAT ON THE BONE. My first choice is rabbit, however this is not always available and is not always cheap. My second choice is more readily available and isn’t expensive and that is chicken wings, which you can purchase at most supermarkets. But please remember NEVER FEED YOUR FERRET WITH COOKED BONES as they can splinter in the mouth and cause untold damage. Now don’t get me wrong I am NOT saying don’t feed a dry food diet. The dry food diets on the market today are excellent, I personally recommend Vitalin as the protein level is 40% and a high protein level is what you should be looking for. What I am saying is please allow your ferret the opportunity of participating in a more natural form of food, which will also help keep their teeth in very good order. One thing I will point out is that a ferret fed on a 100% dry biscuit diet is more likely to have teeth problems than a ferret fed on a 50% raw meat/50% biscuit diet. Another thing to bear in mend is that the biscuits we feed to our ferrets may cause staining to their teeth in the long term.
CLEANING YOUR FERRETS EARS
The number one rule with ear cleaning is NEVER USE COTTON BUDS. They can cause serious damage to the ferret’s ear canal. You can buy “Ear Wipes” from some pet shops, but it is cheaper and just as good to use sensitive moist baby wipes which clean dirty ears with ease. There is no easy way to hold a ferret when cleaning their ears, well not in my experience anyway! I find this task much more difficult than clipping their nails. I know my ferrets hate it and once again Harry is needed to assist. Remember to support your ferret's head gently but firmly. I find that tilting them on their side whilst supporting the head underneath makes it a lot easier. As with nail clipping, “scruffing” is another way to hold your ferret when cleaning their ears. I inspect my ferrets' ears every 2-3 weeks as part of my regular “husbandry” check list. I only clean their ears, using the above method, if it is obvious to the naked eye that it is necessary. Please remember that ear wax is a natural product and is there for a purpose, not just to look unsightly!! Another alternative, in the hope you will have at least a pair of ferrets living together, is that you encourage them to clean each others ears for you! You can do this by putting some plain olive oil on a cotton wool ball and gently dabbing it on the outside of each ferrets ears. The ferrets will then spend sometime licking the olive oil off their friends ears and in the process give the ear a really good clean. If at anytime you suspect your ferret has an ear problem or you think they have ear mites please take them straight to your vet for treatment. Whichever medication is prescribed please allow it to get to room temperature and warm the container in your hands before administering it to your ferret, there is nothing worse for them than a sudden squirt of something very cold down their ear canal. The use of Ferretvite or Ferretone when ear cleaning helps distract the ferret and relaxes them.
FERRET NAILS
Keeping your ferret's nails trimmed is an essential part of ferret husbandry and should be done on a regular basis, usually around every 2-3 weeks. Nails that are too long can catch very easily on things such as carpets and bedding, at worst a caught nail could cause the entire nail bed to be pulled out, so please trim your ferret's nails regularly. I have to admit that I am unable to cut my ferrets' nails by myself. I know a lot of people can and do, but I am not one of them! Harry, my husband, gets roped in together with a tube of Ferretvite. You could also try clipping their nails when they are still half asleep and are naturally relaxed, this method unfortunately does not work with my crew as they wake up very quickly!! I guarantee there will always be at least one ferret that will not co-operate no matter how many people help, so the best thing to do in these circumstances is to “scruff” the ferret. You do this by gently, but firmly, taking hold of the loose skin on the back of the neck as the ferret’s mother would have done when carrying your ferret as a kit. This technique does not cause the ferret any pain and I firmly believe that it is a good idea to let your ferret become used to being “scruffed” as early in your relationship as possible. A ferret that is relaxed about it makes all sorts of procedures so much easier for the owner and much less stressful for the ferret. For the job itself I use human nail clippers. I find them easier to handle and they do the job quickly and cleanly. Pleasedon’t try cutting your ferret's nails with scissors they do not do the job well and could end up damaging the nail. Remember to try not to cut the nail too short. When you put your ferret’s foot on a flat surface the nail should touch the surface. Ferrets also have a“quick” at the top of their nails so if you cut the nail too short, not only will you hurt your ferret, but the nail will bleed. So please take care. Try to cut the nails all the same length. I have throughout this been talking about the front feet of the ferret. The nails on the back feet very rarely need clipping. I have some ferrets whose back nails have never needed clipping, but on the other hand I have two ferrets whose back nails grow as rapidly as the front and need to be clipped. You can clean the pads of your ferret’s feet with sensitive moist baby wipes. This is really not an essential part of your regular husbandry duties, unless of course they have trodden in something awful, but I am sure they appreciate having clean feet just as much as we do!!
SHOULD YOU BATH YOUR FERRET?
Personally, unless my ferret is covered in poo, the answer is a resounding NO!! A ferret's coat has natural oils in it. By shampooing your ferret, be it with ferret shampoo or even baby shampoo, you are taking out the natural oils from the coat. The ferret then has to work overtime to replace these oils which can then cause the ferret to smell, at which point the owner then baths them again to get rid of the smell. A bit of a vicious and unnecessary circle!! The best and most natural way to freshen up a ferret’s coat is by allowing them to play in the bath or shower with warm clean water. Treat it as a game then everyone has fun, the coat has been refreshed and the bathroom floor and you are both soaking wet, which your ferret will love!! Don’t overdo it though, just occasionally. Also to help keep your ferret's coat gleaming, make sure they have clean bedding and remember to give them a good brush, with a clean brush, every week or so.
A FERRET'S FAVOURITE THINGS
So what are a ferret's favourite toys and pastimes? Let’s see shall we:
Dry pasta dig box – I have a medium sized plastic storage box with a couple of bags of the cheapest pasta shapes in and my lot just love it. It makes loads of noise which they adore, but do watch out for the odd one or two who decide to try eating it!! Also during moulting season they use the pasta to scratch their coats which assists in getting out the loose hair, not silly are they?
Raw rice dig box – I have done a rice dig box in the past and they do enjoy it, BUT a couple of my boys decided it was too much like cat litter and did their business in it and another couple decided it was a good idea to just throw it all out of the box!!
Paper bags – in the case of my ferrets the larger the better because they think they are great, although when too many try to get into the same bag all at once it rips rather quickly!!
Plastic carrier bags – they have great fun in these, but please only use these when you are supervising the play session as plastic bag in a ferts tummy is not good!! Also cutting the handles off means they don’t get tangled up.
Boxes – no matter what size or shape it is the ferret enjoys it. Seal the box and just cut two ferret sized holes in it then just sit back and watch them have fun chasing each other in and out. Do keep checking in the box though just in case they use it for stashing food or as an emergency toilet!!
Footware - shoes, trainers, slippers, Wellington boots, you name them they’ll play in them, especially if your feet are still in them!!
Film canisters – if you have any of these lying about the house pop a few dried peas or some dried rice inside, make sure the lid is firmly closed and hey presto instant ferret attraction!!
Watering can – an old watering can left lying on the floor can provide both you and the ferret with a great deal of entertainment, but please make sure the watering can has only had water in it and no chemical products from the house or garden. Also make sure it is empty of water when they want to play in it!
Carpet – get yourself an off cut of carpet, roll it up so the hole is ferret sized and there you have one instant carpet tube for running through, climbing on and scratching. A three-in-one ferret amusement!!
Bean bags – animal ones are expensive, but you can buy a thin summer duvet for around £4 and a cheap duvet cover for about the same. Both are easily washed and the ferrets love playing and sleeping in them.
Water – find yourself a cheap baby bath, without a plug hole (charity shops for £1-£4), place a large stone/rock with a flat top in the bottom of it then add the water, just enough so the top of the rock is not covered and they can use it as a stepping stone. Or if you have the space buy the ferrets a “Shell Sandpit” (Argos £13.99). You can use half with water and half with other toys in.
Tubes – these are always a big favourite with all ferrets. The cheapest ones come free from any carpet shop, they are usually cardboard, but you can get plastic ones at some shops. You can also use land drainage tubes, which are slightly flexible and not too expensive, try your local DIY wholesalers. Also there is the tumble dryer hose which is very flexible, but sadly it is not cheap!
A box full of dried leaves - they just love the noise they make and the feel of the leaves as they dig and dive into them.
A tub of soil - it makes a tremendous mess and the ferrets get beautifully dirty butthey love it.
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