Any ferret owners here?

[Stand_watie]

Anyone who has been following my recent posts knows that I'm now a single dad (unless my wife comes to her senses, keep praying) and I've been doing a few little things around the house to work my way out of my depression. Moved the gun rack into the master bedroom, took over the master bath, packed box after box of cat figurines etc.

Anyway, I've wanted a ferret for years and the wife nixed it, but now that it's my house I thought "what the heck"?

So if you own one, let's hear the pro's and cons.

[USP45usp]

I never had one but I did "ferret sit" for a friend.  The ferrets had to be kept in a cage and when taken out had to be in a confined space.  I was told that they would run and it would be almost impossible to get them.  The reason is that they are VERY flexible, you would be amazed at what they could get into.  He had a small flower vase that they would go into and then TURN AROUND! at the bottom and crawl out.

They like "toes" (to nip em).  They stink if you don't wash them.  All in all, they are fun little pets but they are somewhat labor intensive (cleaning up after them, etc..)

Wayne

[TarpleyG]

Jim March is the ferret expert but I fear that he is in rather deep hiding or some Diebold conspiracy has taken him out.  Can't say much more.  Where are you Jim March???

Greg

[roo_ster]

OK, all I know about ferrets is what I learned when my dorm roommate got one & it was in our room:
1. Make sure its scent glands have been removed
2. Males will stink anyway, even if the glands are gone, so get a female
3. They can eat cat food & can be taught to use a litter box
4. They'll kill any vermin they can get thier paws on
5. Ferrets are kinda cool, in a "its not a cat" sort of way

That's it for my ferret knowledge

[Preacherman]

The only ferret with which I ever had prolonged contact was this one...

http://www.hants.gov.uk/museum/aldershot/collections/ferret.html

 

[charby]

One of my friends has one and to be honest I hate the little b@stard. She likes to let run around her apartment and it does return back to its cage once in a while so it doesn't really escape, the part I hate about Tits McGee (the ferrets name) is that I'll be standing there in a pair of shorts and this giant white weasel comes running accross the room and bites me right in the leg, then scrurries off again. She tells me he does this to everyone once in a while.

Other than that I don't know jack crap about ferrets, except the males stink.

Charby

p.s. I think I'd rather have a Chincilla.  (sp)

[Iain]

My cousin keeps quite a few of them, he's an enthusiastic rabbiter, be it ferrets or rifle. He has slaughtered 1,000's, but there are always more.

He loves his ferrets, oddly sentimental about them. Except for one. He took a 12ga to one because it won't no damned good (his words). Real vicious creature, but that is the only he's had that trouble with. The mother of his pack sits on his shoulders and cleans out his ears.

We still got some good country boys.

[Stickjockey]

We had one several years ago. Let's see if I can remember:

Ferrets:

NEED to be descented. Especially males. All there is to it.

Even when descented, they still need to be bathed regularly, once every other day or so. The good part is, unlike cats, they love it.

They eat regular cat food.

They can be litterbox trained.

Train them early not to bite. They use a sort of light mouthing to say "hi", but if not caught, this can quickly turn to biting. A quick thump on the nose with your fingertip and a stern "No!" usually works.

They are unusually fearless. The one we had would regularly face down the cat.

They love to chase anything; balls, vacuum cleaners, whatever moves.

[Black92LX]

Freshamn Year we had three ferrets and 7 snakes in our dorm room. Ferrets are great fun and absolutly adorable. loving and a lot of fun.
We bathed them twice a week with a special shampoo and we had no scent problems. we had enclosed stand up showers in our dorms so i would just let them run around and play in the water shampoo them up and let them play till i was done with my shower and that was it. Added maybe 2 minutes to my shower. no one knew we had the ferrets unless we told them. We let them run all over the dormroom when we were around.
she was my favorite

cons ferrets are nocturnal they are loud at night when you have 3 in a dorm room! that's it.