For Kim Vanderlaan and anybody else who winds up rescuing a mink:
 
The Ferret Endowment for Research, Rehabilitation, Education & Training
Society, NW has its 6th mink in a display cage in the FERRETS NW reception
room for all visitors to see and to play "puff" with, being that's what
they want to do.
 
All 6 of these mink (one at a time) are rescue critters that I was told
over the phone were ferrets.  I was asked to come and pick them up as soon
as possible, which is what I did.  When I got there, I took one look and
said, "Uh oh .  .  .  that's no ferret!"
 
The first five, one after another, I dutifully turned over to the
Progressive Animal Welfare Society PAWS for "Rehab," or so was led to
believe.  Each and every one of the mink were killed by PAWS.  The reason
(which by the way was very difficult to find out!) was twofold: 1.) The
mink were not native Washington State wild mink, but were escapees from a
mink fur farm.  And 2.) No mink rancher would accept any of these five mink
because of the risk to their stock in the event the returnee mink had
picked up a disease during its brief freedom.  Taking back an escapee could
possibly wipe out his entire mink farm, so I've been told.  Makes sense.
 
By the way, it's illegal to keep as a pet the chestnut-brown native WA
State mink.  However, nobody cares one twit about the steel/grey fur farm
mink, which is the kind we have here.  Edward Lipinski cares.
 
So, instead of turning this sixth mink over to PAWS to be killed, FNW's vet
spayed her and she is now a permanent resident at the shelter farm and is a
delightful representative of one of the members of the ferret family,
albeit, as a wild animal, she has this "sniff, bite & scoot" instinct which
makes her unhandlable except with medium heavy leather gloves.
 
What she does is to first "sniff" at a new object.  Then she grabs it with
her teeth and really bears down hard "bite," and then will pull like crazy
"scoots" to get it away from your grip.  She is extremely strong for her
size and lightening quick - like a blur when she darts about.
 
Her diet is dry ferret and kitten chow, baby rats and mice when we can get
them free, free and raw bandsaw meat from the local meat cutter friend, and
freshly killed eastern grey squirrels.  (I trap them in Mrs. Lipinski's
garden.) Fish & Game agent said to kill them rather than turn the squirrels
loose in the Cascade mountains.
 
She gets fish in her diet as well when its added to the LUMPS that is also
fed to our little ferret army of 30-some shelter ferrets.  So she eats
pretty good, and like the ferret, produces a lot of feces and urine.  The
odor from her two litter boxes, which she nearly always uses, is extremely
strong and has a slightly different smell than the ferret litter boxes.
Most visitors here usually remark about her smell, so if I have an incoming
appointment with some potential ferret adopters, I try to change out her
litter boxes with new ones just before the people get here.  Sometimes I
forget or get in a hurry and can't find my damn leather gloves or the
people get here way ahead of schedule.
 
As I've been told, when you're downwind of a mink farm, you can smell it
more than a mile away.  I believe that now.
 
That's one thing I learned right away.  No matter where she is in the cage,
she can come at you in a flash and if you're not wearing gloves and a long
sleeved shirt, you are for sure going to be bleeding and a hurten'.
 
After the squirrel is shot completely through (don't want any lead bullet
remaining in its body) I immersion soak the shot-through squirrel in a
small tub of near boiling water for 10 minutes or so to kill any external
parasites on the squirrel before I give it to Miss Minkie.
 
This is when the fun begins, because I don't give up the squirrel readily
to her.  I hold on to it while she tries to pull it away from me and pull
she does.  So we play tug of war for a few minutes while she repeatedly
jerks that squirrel just like a dog and makes these "huffing and puffing"
grunts, pausing ever so often as she looks up at me through her plum
colored eyes as if saying to me, "OK, enough is enough, Edward.  Gimmie
that blasted squirrel you big lug!" Which I do.
 
She'll take the squirrel to the fartherst corner of the cage and bite
repeatedly at the base of the skull with intense vigor.  You can hear the
spinal vertebra cracking, so that, I guess, is how she'd kill a prey animal
for food.
 
All the caged ferrets watch her with great interest at these times.
 
She then comes right back to me and sniffs my gloved fingers as if to say,
"Any more?" and then quickly returns to her squirrel.  She always starts
eating the squirrel at the exit wound of the bullet.
 
In three days, the squirrel is turned inside out.  Only the skin and tail
is left.  She eats everything, bones included.  (Except the teeth and
part of the jawbone)
 
If you want, I can tell you about the "puff & charge & thumping" game we
play, how she interacts with the ferrets and my efforts to get a Figure 8
cat harness on her.
 
Otherwise hope this helps you with your mink.  Nobody I know has ever
made a "pet" of a mink, so maybe you'll be the first.  Keep us informed.
 
Edward Lipinski
[Posted in FML issue 2721]