Ferrets

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Ferrets

Ferrets are cute bundles of curiousity, energy, love and fun. You gotta love them, they're so gorgeous! They are a the only domesticated member of the mustelidae family which has weasels, skunks, otters, polecats etc. Their closest relative is the polecat. Their scientific name is mustela puturios furo. They have been domesticated from inbetween 2500 years to 7000 years. That's a long time! Possibly longer than a cat.

Ferrets are playful like a kitten their whole life and are probably more demanding than most cats and dogs but definately worth the while!They are smarter than a cat and possibly a dog too. That would explain how they always manage to get into tihngs! They sleep for inbetween 16-20 hours a day and you NEED to play with them for at least 2 hours a day. They are friendly, fearless animals.

A group of ferrets is called a buisness. An male is a hob, an altered male a gib. A female is a jill and an altered female a sprite. Baby ferrets are called kits. Males are usually twice as big as a female. A ferret will live around 6 -10 years without accidents.

Well hope you enjoy the site.

A ferret = fun. :)

Ferrets come in many different colours with the most common being albino - white with red eyes and sable - cream with dark guard hairs and a raccon like mask. Different colour variations are; cinnamon, blue or silver. They can come with masks, no masks, stripes and mitts.

Ferrets along with all other mustelids have a musky smell which i find way better than a wet dog! They also have a gland like a skunk which they can use usually when extremely frightened, although unlike a skunk it is no where near as strong, doesn't stain and only lasts about 5 mins. Some ferrets are descented, this makes no difference to the overall smell of you fuzzbutt but being desexed reduces it by about 90%!

When a ferret is excited ot will do a 'war dance' in which it opens it's mouth and swings its head from side to side bouncing around and jumping into thing whilst dooking. You know how a cat goes meow, well a ferret makes a clucking sound like 'dook, dook, dook' very fast. Sometimes they hiss during play though it sounds really pathetic and shriek when hurt. They also have a pose called 'flat ferret' where they lay on the ground as flat as they can and it usually means look at me, give me some attention or they are playing.

The information on this site is my thoughts and advice, I am not a vet and intend this as a guide only.