Since there have been several posts on ferrets - whether they still have the
instinct to kill or not, I thought I should share this story again.
 
The top to the baby opossum cage got left open and an athletic male ferret
named Ashes jumped the barrier that is SUPPOSED to keep ferrets in their
room.  Three of the five opossums had already escaped fromthe open cage and
climbed into a book case.  Ashes found the open cage and climbed in.  I
walked into the room and noticed 1) the opossum cage lid open, 2) a ferret
with blood all over it inside, and 3) only two very dead looking opossums
inside.
 
I grabbed the ferret and washed him off and put him back inside his cage.  I
then called my husband to look over the opossums and hunt for the missing
ones.  the two in the cage were fairly well bitten, but due to Mother Nature
giving them a defense called "fainting when really scared - ie playing
possum", they woke up, cleaned their wounds and with some antibiotic, grew
up to be big possums and released.  We found the other three escapees later
that day when the books started to move.
 
My analysis - ferrets will play roughly with any moving object - once it
stops moving they loose interest.  Small rodents, birds, etc. will keep
moving in an effort to escape, and therefore be killed.  But once dead and
still, the ferret will not eat it because it does not recognize it for food.
 
Ferrets don't have the hunting-for-survival instinct - they will starve if
they don't find something they recognize as food, and here in the Americas,
we feed dry food.  Maybe in the UK and Europe a ferret would hunt and kill
some, but only because they were brought up that way.  Now that they are
introducing dry food over there, it will be interesting to see how much
better pet ferrets make.
 
Pam / STAR*
[Posted in FML issue 1340]