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The Ferret Page
Home of Bandit, Noodle and Peanut (and Dale and Kim, who pay the rent)
(That's a dog up there. GeoCities doesn't have a ferret in the clip art library yet. We have written to them.)

dook dook dook dook ... Welcome to The Ferret Page! ... If you are missing a sock, we probably have it ... dook dook dook ...

[ Meet the Weasels | Ferret Care 101 | Ferret-Proofing | The Sock Stash | The Vet | Is It Legal? | Ferret Club | Links ]

Hi! We're Dale and Kim Roth and we live with three ferrets. People ask us all the time, "What are they LIKE?" and the honest answer is: a ferret is what you'd get if you crossed a kitten with a two-year-old and a burglar, then made it out of Slinky. They sleep like the dead, and then they wake up and steal your car keys. We got Bandit in 1996 and it was all downhill from there. This page is for people who are thinking about a ferret, people who just got one and are wondering what they have done, and the folks from the club who keep asking Kim to write down the proofing list. Here it is, Barb.

Meet the Weasels

Bandit (sable, 3½ years) -- The boss. Named before we knew how right we were. Bandit steals with a plan. He does not grab a thing and run; he sizes it up, checks that you are looking the other way, and then drags it off backwards to the stash (see below). He is the only one of the three who has figured out the kitchen cabinet with the "child-proof" latch. His hobbies are digging in the houseplants and lying on the heat vent. Noodle (albino, 2 years) -- Named because that is what she is shaped like when she's asleep, which is most of the time. Even for a ferret, Noodle is a champion sleeper. She will fall asleep IN the food bowl. She is also the sweetest one -- she'll go limp in your arms and sigh. Noodle is deaf, which is not rare in white ferrets, so she startles easy and we stomp on the floor before we pick her up so she feels us coming. Peanut (sable mitt, 1 year) -- The baby, and the one doing the "weasel war dance" in the living room at 6 a.m. If you've never seen the war dance: the ferret puffs up, arches its back, hops sideways with its mouth open, bounces off the couch, the wall and the other ferrets, and makes the "dook dook dook" noise the whole time. It looks like a seizure. It means "I am SO HAPPY." Peanut also bites Bandit's tail to start fights and then hides behind Kim.

Ferret Care 101 (the stuff we wish somebody told us)

1. They are carnivores. Real ones. Ferrets are not rodents (people think they're related to hamsters -- nope, they're in the weasel family). They are meat-eaters with a very short digestive tract. Food goes in one end and is out the other in three or four hours, so they need food and water available all the time. Feed a real ferret food -- high in animal protein (30-40%), high in fat (around 20% or more), and low in fiber. Read the bag: meat should be the first ingredient. Ferrets can't digest plant fiber, so no fruit, no vegetables, no dairy, no cereal, no dog food. Our vet also told us to knock it off with the raisins (which everybody used to give as treats) because the sugar is bad news for their pancreas later on. Now a treat is a pea-sized bit of cooked egg. 2. They sleep 18 hours a day. Not an exaggeration. And they sleep HARD. A ferret in "dead sleep" can be picked up, turned over and put back down without waking. The first time Kim found Noodle like that she thought she'd lost her and cried. Noodle woke up ten minutes later and yawned. Now we just check that they're breathing and go about our day. 3. They need shots, same as a dog. Ferrets can catch canine distemper and it is almost always fatal to them, so they get a distemper vaccination as kits and a yearly booster. They also get a yearly rabies shot (there is a rabies vaccine approved for ferrets). More about the vet below. 4. About the smell, and "descenting." Almost every ferret sold in a pet store in this country has already been descented (the scent glands removed) and spayed or neutered before it ever gets to the store. Here is the thing nobody tells you: descenting does NOT make a ferret odorless. That musky ferret smell comes from oils in their skin, and it's just part of the deal. Bathing them a lot makes it WORSE -- the skin overproduces oil to make up for it. Once a month, tops. Wash their bedding every week instead. That's where the smell lives. 5. Litter box: mostly. Ferrets can be litter trained. They will use the box about 90% of the time. The other 10% they will back into a corner and look you dead in the eye. Put a box in every corner they like. Do not use clumping litter (they dig in it and it gets in their noses). 6. They live about 6 to 8 years and older ferrets get some particular illnesses, so find a vet who sees them BEFORE you need one.

Ferret-Proofing (Kim's List, by popular demand)

The rule: if the head fits, the ferret fits. That's about an inch. Get down on your hands and knees and look at your house from ferret height. It will depress you. Recliners and sofa beds. We do not own either any more. Ferrets climb up inside the mechanism and go to sleep, and then somebody sits down. This is the #1 way ferrets get killed at home. Not kidding, not even a little. Anything rubber or foam. Ferrets LOVE to chew rubber -- shoe soles, pencil erasers, remote control buttons, foam earplugs, the rubber feet off the bathroom scale. Swallowed rubber causes an intestinal blockage, which means surgery or worse. This is the #1 reason ferrets end up at the vet. Put it up high. Higher than that. Under the fridge and the stove. We cut plywood strips to block the gaps. Bandit had gone under the stove and was sleeping against the gas line before we did that. Under doors. A door with an inch of clearance is not a door to a ferret. The dryer vent and the washing machine. Check the dryer BEFORE you start it. Every time. For the rest of your life. Toilets, buckets, the bathtub. Lids down. Ferrets can get in and not out. Houseplants. They will dig them up. Every one. Ours are on top of the bookshelf now, and the bookshelf is bolted to the wall because Bandit climbs it. Cabinet latches. The child-proof ones work on Noodle and Peanut. See Bandit, above. Open windows with screens. They will push through the screen. Your bag, your purse, the laundry basket, the open dishwasher. Look before you close anything. Dale's addition: watch where you step. A ferret will be behind your foot. They are always behind your foot.

The Sock Stash

Ferrets hoard. It's what the name means -- "ferret" comes from a Latin word for thief. Every ferret has a stash, and every ferret is 100% sure you don't know where it is. Ours is under the bathroom vanity, behind the pipes. We pulled it out on Labor Day weekend for the annual cleaning. The official inventory, September 6, 1999: 23 socks, none of which match each other. Kim counted twice. Dale's car keys (missing since July; we had a spare made) The remote for the VCR (we bought a new VCR in August. We did not need a new VCR.) Kim's checkbook Four dog toys (we don't have a dog; these belong to the neighbors' beagle) A wristwatch we do not recognize One (1) Beanie Baby, badly chewed, formerly a lobster Eleven pencil erasers, which explains a lot, and which is why the pencils now live in a jar with a lid Half a bagel Everything was carried there by a ferret walking backwards, one item at a time, dragging it in its teeth. We have watched Bandit move a full-size bath towel this way. It took him forty minutes and he did not give up once. If we had that kind of determination we'd have finished the basement by now. Yes, we gave the beagle his toys back. No, we did not give back the socks. We figure whoever's socks they are is on the Internet looking for them right now, so: if you are missing a green argyle, e-mail us.

The Vet

Not every vet sees ferrets. Call around and ask for somebody who does "exotics" or who sees ferrets regularly -- a vet who's only ever seen dogs and cats can miss ferret problems. Ours is across town and worth the drive. Here's what a year at the vet looks like for us: Yearly checkup, distemper booster and rabies shot for all three. We stagger them so we're not carrying three ferrets in one carrier. (Three ferrets in one carrier is a ferret war dance in a box.) Hairball goo (the same stuff cats get) a couple times a week during shedding season. Ferrets can't cough up hairballs like cats can, and a hairball can block them up. Nail trims every couple weeks. Put a drop of the vitamin goop on their belly and they'll lick it off and let you clip. This is the single best ferret trick we know. Ear cleaning. Ferret ear wax is reddish-brown and there is a lot of it. This is normal. Black and crumbly is ear mites -- call the vet. We learned the hard way that the vet needs to be somebody you can get to on a Sunday. Bandit ate a chunk of a foam flip-flop in 1997 and we spent a very long night with him. He was fine. The flip-flop was not. That is when Kim's List (above) got written.

Is It Legal? (Check Before You Buy!)

It is illegal to keep a ferret as a pet in California and in Hawaii. Yes, the whole state. The states are worried about escaped ferrets going wild and eating the native birds, which is a real concern in Hawaii (it's an island, and things that go wild there tend to stay wild). There are folks in California who have been trying to change the law for years. Until they do, don't bring your ferret on a trip out there. Some cities and counties elsewhere have their own rules too, so if you're not sure, call your local animal control before you go to the pet store, not after. It's a lot easier to find out first than to find out when somebody knocks on your door.

The Ferret Club

We belong to the Tri-County Ferret Fanciers, which is about fifteen families who meet the first Saturday of the month in the library community room (with the ferrets, which the library has been very nice about, mostly). We do a "ferret olympics" every spring -- the tube race, the sock drag, the paper bag rustle -- and Bandit has won the sock drag two years running because, well, look at the inventory. The club also helps place ferrets that people give up when they find out what they've gotten into, so if you are thinking about a ferret, please come to a meeting and hold somebody else's first. The Fall Frolic is Saturday, October 2, 1999, 1 p.m. Costume contest. Kim is making Noodle a pumpkin. Noodle will sleep through it. E-mail us for directions to the meeting.

Other Pet Pages We Like

Mr. Whiskers' Cat Emporium -- Donna's cats. Homepage of the Month! Our ferrets would steal her cats' toys in a heartbeat. Rescue Greyhounds: Life After the Track -- another animal that sleeps all day and runs in bursts. Kindred spirits. Rabbit Rescue Diaries -- Nora's rabbits. (Rabbits and ferrets should never meet. Just so you know.) Goldfish Done Right -- a pet that stays where you put it. Imagine. Back to the Petsburgh neighborhood.

You are visitor number to sneak in here since March 1998. (The ferrets have not stolen the counter. Yet.) E-mail Dale & Kim Ferret questions welcome. Sock claims will be reviewed. Coming soon: pictures! The film has been at the drugstore since Tuesday. Ferrets do not hold still for a camera, so we are not promising much. Last updated September 21, 1999. © 1999 Dale & Kim Roth. Bandit, Noodle and Peanut had nothing to do with the typing, though Peanut walked across the keyboard twice.