>Here is a website I found, adding up what it takes to maintain a ferret
>yearly
 
I am glad to see that you have done your homework Kris.  This is a good
guideline.  However, when you are dealing with shelter babies you are
looking at much more $$ per ferret.  Why?  Well simple.  When a ferret
comes into the home here are some things that normally happen:
 
ADV Test:  Home kit $12.00   Vet check $60-80
Check up and shots (distemper and rabies):   $60.00
Surgery $250.00  (x-ray or ultrasound would be extra)
Follow up check $50
 
TOTAL: $452.00 (does not include food, bedding, litter, and other things
that they need)
 
Now, if the shelter is lucky and can adopt the ferret they can recover
about $50-75 of that.  So, what happens when the shelter gets a pair in
and they both require surgery?  $904.00  Oh and they are 4 and 5 years
old so adopting them out is going to be difficult or impossible.
 
>But many also have some funds set aside for emergencies
 
This may be true for only about 5% of the shelters out there.  But even
they run out of the nest egg.  There are shelters out there that never
ask for help because they don't know "how", they feel wrong in asking and
they try to make do with what they have.  Others ask because they know
they have to from time to time.  We had money at the vets.  Then we got
in 8 within a week.  5 needing surgeries.  Figuring that surgery alone
was $205.00 per ferret that is $1025.  Two of them needed x-rays ($30
each).  We do have a vet that will let us make payments.  But you still
have to pay it off.  So, how much of a nest egg should we have...and
please, tell me, where I should get this nest egg?
 
>And if as a shelter you can't afford it, maybe its better for them to
>foster instead...what their personal ferrets are doing without.
 
I am sure just about all of the shelters out there can answer this one
simply.  No ferret does without.  The shelter operators and families are
the ones that do without.  The ferrets get everything they need and a
lot of times everything they want.  As for fostering?  Who would be the
shelter then?
 
>what will you do with the very sick ferrets?  What will she do with the
>ferret that can't wait for the funds to be raised in order to have
>medical care?
 
Have you asked her this?  Maybe her vet bill is high from just paying for
a surgery and she doesn't have any "room" left for an ADV test.
 
>Shelters must assume all of these things every day.
 
We do.  We always worry about the next "shipment" that is going to
arrive.  Will they be healthy or sick.  Young or old.  But we take them
in anyways.  We do it not because we are rich, we do it because if we
don't - who will?  There is not another shelter in my area.  The closest
one is over 70 miles away from me.  Most people will not drive that
distance to dump a ferret.  Shelters would love to operate with a lot of
money...there still wouldn't be a profit because all of the money would
go back to the shelter kids or to another shelter.
 
If you have a shelter in your area, go to it.  Talk with them and see how
things are run, from the simple day to day things to the financial aspect
of it.  You might be surprised.... and as Cindy said.... have some FAITH.
 
Joanne
Ferret Corner Shelter
www.geocities.com/ferretcorneraz
[Posted in FML issue 3988]