Ferret Property Laws

Bobo - my pet ferret - now at Rainbow Bridge

Bobo - born 1/19/2003

I bought Bobo 3/23/2003 - he passed away 1/14/2007 died in his sleep from unknown causes.

Bobo was such a good pet, alway ready to play, loved chasing balls. He was alway very relaxed when held. His only bad habit was getting up on my desk, when I wasn't looking, and trying to steal my Dr Pepper. Many times I'd come back to my desk to find Dr Pepper spilled and on the floor.

THE FINANCIAL RESPONSIBILITES OF OWNING A PET FERRET

Ferrets are wonderful pets, but they are also prone to various medical disorders. If you are considering a ferret as a pet, the cost associated with ownership is just not the initial purchase price, you need to look all costs - pet food, supplies, and veterinarian care, which can be quite expensive. Marshall Farms Ferrets, due to genetics and the effects of early altering/stress of shipping of pet store babies, has a high prevalence of medical problems. A responsible owner will make sure their pet is in the best of health by providing the right foods, veterinarian checkups, secure & safe accommodations, and lots of play time, to prevent illness. A good quality diet is one of the most important for prevention of illness and disease. Not all ferret foods provide the right nutritional requirements needed and can cause problems.

It might be wise to set up a little fund "just in case", setting aside a few dollars each month to make it easier on the budget, for a goal of about $800 - $1000. So many times, I've read on various forums asking advice on sick ferrets, the owner explaining they do not have necessary funds for a veterinary visit, but sadly the only thing that can be done is the ferret does need emergency vet care. Ferrets are so small, and go downhill very rapidly without immediate care, and can die within a few days. There's no need for any animal to be in pain and suffer because you don't have the money.

But there may be some alternatives, in case finances are not available. Explain to your veterinarian that your having financial difficulties, see if a payment arrangement can be worked out. I had to do this when my cat was ill, I had explained to my veterinarian about my limited finances, and she gave me a discount. Ask friends and family for contributions.

You might qualify for financial aid for pets. Medical treatment for pets can come up when you least expect it, they shouldn't be denied the medical treatments that may be necessary to save their lives. There is help that may be available. Here are some websites that offer financial aid and/or credit cards for vet bills. There are strict requirements for some of them, please visit these sites for future reference.

www.imom.org/ Nonprofit organization for sick, injured and abused companion animals.

www.petsamaritan.org/Medical/ Provides financial assistance to low-income pet owners who can’t afford medical care for their pets

www.angels4animals.org/ provides financial aid to complete treatment to pets and pet owners in need.

www.carecredit.com/ Offers a revolving line of credit

www.thepetfund.com/ Provides financial assistance to owners of domestic animals who need urgent veterinary care

www.uan.org/ provides funding to Good Samaritans, animal rescuers, and pet owners to help them care for animals in life-threatening situations.

www.all-creatures.org/gcm/links.html List of resources for some breed specific pets, or for specific locations

http://www.pets911.com If you are facing unforeseen expenses and meet certain low income requirements, there may be a financial assistance program available to help you with the cost associated with your pet’s treatment.

http://www.aahahelpingpets.org/ With this fund, veterinary care is possible for sick or injured pets even when they have been abandoned or their owners are experiencing financial hardship. The AAHA Foundation trustees envision a future when more pets are saved and more pet owners are grateful. Foundation staff is working every day to make this vision a reality.

Or Google "pet financial aid"

Basic First aid for pets - American Red Cross

Web Sites Related to Emergency and Critical Care Medicine

How do I know it is time? Pet euthanasia

American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) has granted new veterinary specialty - Exotic Companion Mammal (ECM)

The American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) has granted provisional recognition to the first completely new veterinary specialty since 1993. The new specialty will focus on small mammals including rabbits, ferrets, guinea pigs, mice and other small mammals, commonly known as "pocket pets." (Personal observation - I hate ferrets being referred to as "pocket pets", plus the other mammals "rabbits, guinea pigs, mice - all rodents" seems to imply that the ferret is a rodent also, hence the misconception that ferrets are rodents.)

The new Exotic Companion Mammal (ECM) specialty was granted provisional recognition by the AVMA Executive Board on April 12, 2008, following recommendation from the AVMA American Board of Veterinary Specialties (ABVS) and Council on Education.

"The public and the profession will see these specialists as providing that next level of care of small exotic pets," explains Dr. Beth Sabin, assistant director of the AVMA's Education and Research Division. "This new specialty is really the outgrowth of the growing and ever increasing knowledge base of the particular needs of these animals in order to keep them healthy."

Americans own 6.2 million pet rabbits, 1.2 million hamsters, 1.1 million ferrets, and a million guinea pigs, according to the 2007 AVMA U.S. Pet Ownership & Demographics Sourcebook. The new ECM practice area includes these and other more unusual small pets, including hedgehogs and sugar gliders, but doesn't include illegal pet species-sometimes referred to as "fad pets"-which have been linked to the spread of zoonotic diseases. In 2003, prairie dogs and Gambian giant pouched rats kept as pets were linked to a serious monkeypox outbreak.

http://www.medilexicon.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=105348

ANOTHER PERSONAL OBSERVATION: If the veterinarian is treating small mammals, and all of them are rodents with the exception of ferrets, could this be a fatality waiting to happen in the waiting room? What if a ferret got loose in a room full of rodents?

Ferrets - Living rat traps

In this article from Popular Science, February 1936, about how Levi Farsworth started raising ferrets and became one of the largest ferret farms in New London, Ohio, raising as many as 10,000 a year. They were sold for extermination of rats, but they also were used for ridding of other pests. It explains how the ferrets are raised and kept.

Living Rat Traps RAISED ON NOVEL FARMS

In This Article, the Author Takes You for a Visit To a Strange “Ranch” Where Ferrets Are Bred by Thousands To Aid Man in His War Against Rodents
By Walter E. Burton

IF A MAN. . . make a belter mouse-trap than his neighbor,” someone said, “though he build his home in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door.” The truth of this statement is being realized with profit by a number of “farmers” in the vicinity of New London, Ohio; only the traps are raised and not built, and they work equally well with rats, prairie dogs, and squirrels. New London is known as the ferret center of the world, because more of those animals are raised there than in any other place, some 25,000 a year being a conservative present-time estimate.

continue reading ferret farms

A town called "Ferretsville"

New London United States Pennsylvania Levi Farnsworth Ohio Ted Cunningham Mississippi - SI Vault


History of how Ferrets came to be in America and a town called Ferretsville, in Ohio.

In this article, ferrets were sold as rat exterminators and it became a big business in this town. Times changed, new methods of pest extermination using chemicals, ferrets soon met their demise and were outlawed.

This is part of the article about a ferret named Parker.....

With the questing instincts of a fox and a build like a wet noodle, the ferret rivaled any hunter. So society passed laws against him, Ferretville, U.S.A. died and the author was left with memories of a wriggly pocket

The first ferret I knew well was a white one belonging to my grandfather. In theory, this hob lived in the basement and was employed as the family rat chaser. In practice, he was usually found either asleep in a broom closet or sitting up on his hind legs begging for toast and cheese in the kitchen. Occasionally my grandmother, exasperated by this vicious killer, would chase him downstairs with a broom, ordering him to go catch a rat and stop pestering her for cheese sandwiches. As far as I know, this ferret never leaped at her jugular vein. Between then and now I have known other ferrets, all of which were considerably more personable and peaceable companions than myna birds, Pekingese dogs or Siamese fighting fish.

A few years ago I bought my last ferret at black-market prices from a poacher friend. He shall go unidentified and un-located, for if he were caught with his dozen ferrets he would be treated harshly. This ferret was a little brindle female who, when she was brought to my houseful of children, dogs, cats and assorted livestock, took up residence under the refrigerator. She was named Parker (after the famous Nosey) in recognition of a ferret's most notable characteristic, which is not lusting after blood, but insatiable curiosity.

Ferrets are congenitally unable to resist exploring holes, nooks, crannies and cracks. Parker, like all ferrets, had an ideal build for this investigatory work. She weighed about a pound, was 16 inches long and as supple as a serpent. She could get her sharp-pointed little head through a hole two inches in diameter, and anyplace her head could go her shoulderless and hipless body could follow. She squirmed into heating ducts, into the innards of radios and pianos, into boots, into the decapitated corpses of hollow-bodied dolls and under bookcases and rugs. Her only violent act was committed against a clumsy German shepherd who stepped on her one morning as she was emerging from her den beneath the refrigerator. In a chattering rage, Parker twisted around and bit the stumblebum on the nose. Forever after, this boob of a dog treated Parker with great respect. Parker had only two habits that ferret detractors could call depraved. She would run nylon stockings as she tried to climb up the legs they encased, and she would steal dish towels, dragging them into her pad under the refrigerator.

Despite her easy adjustment as a house pet, Parker was, after all, a ferret, whose traditional line of work was supposed to be chasing things out of holes, not dusting under chairs with her tail. So in the spring of her first year we took her to the farm of a friend, Glenn, who had a pasture full of rabbit and woodchuck holes. In the evening Glenn and I, with Parker in my pocket, set out on one of the last great ferret hunts.

One of the advantages of ferreting is that the principal participant, the ferret, does not need much training. All a ferret's instincts urge him to go down any hole he is shown. The man, who is supposedly in charge of the operation, only has to put his ferret on the ground, sit down and wait to see what comes up. The difficulty is that sometimes a ferret gets into a hole he likes too well. He may follow a maze that brings him to the surface a long way from the original entrance; he may decide to curl up and take a nap; or he may, on rare occasions, decide to catch himself a meal, which he will eat in leisurely fashion despite any pressing appointments the man waiting above ground may have. Even love may detain a ferret. One oldtime ferreter tells of dropping a she-ferret in an amorous physiological condition down what he thought was a rabbit hole. Actually, there was a he-mink in the burrow. These two close cousins proved simpatico, and the ferreter claims that whatever went on in the dark was tempestuous and took the devil's own time to accomplish. However, he was never able to prove that his ferret was not all she should have been since, as the saying goes, there was no issue.

To avoid these annoying delays, ferrets are sometimes harnessed and worked on long leashes. In this way they can be dragged back on demand, except when the leash gets tangled on a root or around a stone. When this happens there is nothing for the ferreter to do but get out a pick and shovel and start digging. This kind of thing tends to take the fun out of a hunt, particularly if the ground is frozen. A muzzle is also sometimes used on a ferret. The idea is that the animal can now chase, but cannot dine, on his quarry. The risk of this method is that if the ferret meets up with a hole owner who is ready and willing to dispute a passage, the hunter is likely to become the hunted. Still other ferreters hunt only mated pairs. They send the female underground and keep the male with them, as a sort of hostage. The reasoning is that the little lady will hurry back to her husband. The female is never kept waiting for the male. If nothing else, this procedure ought to interest young wives and marriage counselors.

Parker, Glenn and I were innocent of any fancy equipment or philosophies when we set out on our expedition. As it turned out, we did not need them, for Parker took to woodchuck holes like a woodchuck will to a sweet-corn patch. She dived down the first hole we showed her and came up a few minutes later at the mouth of an interconnecting tunnel. She had earth on her nose and a pleased gleam in her eye. Then, as we followed, she began to work down the fence row, diving and surfacing in the loam like a porpoise in the sea. The only disappointing aspect of this operation was that Parker was the only creature who came up out of any of the holes.

"I know there's chucks in there," Glenn complained. "They sit around stuffing themselves on clover all day. I see them when I'm plowing."

External evidence confirmed this claim. Many of the holes had fresh earth and woodchuck table scraps at the mouth. Occasionally, while Parker was underground, we would hear an ill-tempered rumbling. Even so, Parker would come up alone, with a worried, apologetic look on her face. Finally we decided that since it was getting late the woodchucks must all have been sacked out and Parker had been far too much of a lady to rouse them.

Eventually Glenn raised a young rabbit that bolted down a hole in the bank of an old quarry. We picked up Parker and ran to the spot. This burrow had two entrances and we put Parker in the one we thought the rabbit had used. Almost at once there was a satisfying commotion. Shortly, both animals emerged, but there must have been some underground confusion, for the rabbit came out of the hole Parker had entered and the ferret popped up from the far exit. They stared at each other for a brief moment and then the rabbit jumped. The bunny was clearly adolescent, but it already outweighed Parker about two to one. With sort of the rabbit equivalent of a straight arm, the quarry simply ran over the vicious ferret. When the dust settled, Parker picked herself up and looked around groggily after the fashion of a T-formation quarterback who has been blitzed. The rabbit was long gone. It was a humiliating experience for both Parker and me. We got no sympathy from Glenn, who howled hysterically, "She's a tiger, a tiger. Please don't let her get me."

In attempting to rebut the various slanders that have been circulated about ferrets it would be unrealistic to claim that all of these little animals are as ineffectual as Parker was on this occasion. I admit to remembering a great white ferret who was once dropped down a wide-mouthed hole. There was an almost instantaneous explosion of action. Two fox pups followed by a vixen came boiling out of the den, with the hob ferret in close and ferocious pursuit. Most ferrets do chase things-it is their nature- and catch them, too. A ferret worked frequently can probably take as many rabbits in the course of a year as a man driving to conservation meetings can kill with his car. Even Parker might have become an efficient ferret if given a little practice. It was just that at the time of her maiden hunt she was more accustomed to dealing with dish towels than game. After this first and last field trial, she was retired and lived out her days in the kitchen, operating from the security of her refrigerator den, where no rabbit could get at her.

In time, as all creatures must, Parker came to her reward. Though she was mourned, she has not been replaced. What with all the assaults recently being made on law and order, I did not want to contribute to the breakdown of public morality by keeping a bootleg ferret, and I did not have the time or money to license one. However, my recent visit to New London renewed my craving for these weasels. Deciding to live dangerously, I inquired about buying one in this Cooperstown of ferretry. I had no more luck than Parker did with the rabbit. Rumor has it that there is one retired ferret rancher near New London who keeps half a dozen of the animals for old times' sake. But this man will not admit to such carryings-on and so, lacking a search warrant, there is not a ferret to be had in what was once Ferretville, U.S.A. There is nothing left in Our Town now but Chenango Charlie and the girls' choir and those nice old ladies on their porches.

Ferret in the fridge

Video about ferrets in the fridge. My Little Boy got in the fridge, into the big bowl of tossed salad, and he proceeded to toss that salad all over the fridge! Bobo, used to steal tomatoes and hide them. Be sure to ferret-proof - I put a strip of cardboard on bottom, and cardboard pieces on both sides in a V-shape to the wall, so the only pieces are tape to the fridge and not the wall, but they can't get behind.

Cool Video about a Lion

Several years ago this woman found a sick, malnourished lion cub in the jungle. She took the cub home, fed him and raised him.  When he was too big to keep anymore, she made arrangements with a sanctuary in Columbia to take the lion. This video of what happened when she went to visit him for the first time.

 

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BowTie, Inc. Launches Two Websites Catering to Small Animal Enthusiasts

BowTie, Inc. Launches Two Websites Catering to Small Animal Enthusiasts

FerretsMagazine

Will be opening the week of April 15 through 21, 2008, when visitors will be able to enter and win giveaways.

Features will include:

Ferret care, health, housing, handling, nutrition and behavior from reliable, accurate and trustworthy information

Use the site as meeting places to exchange information, tips and stories about their favorite pets

Create their own avatar, send critters eCards, create a magazine cover with their pet's photo

Enter their pet in contests and much more

Join Club Critter, build a webpage for their pets and meet other small animal owners and enthusiasts

As users participate in activities,they receive redeemable points they can exchange for merchandise

Contests,surveys, games, blogs

Detailed information about ferrets

In-depth ferret information for the websites will be provided by the editorial experts of FerretsUSA magazines to make a premier site dedicated 100% to ferrets