Some ferrets in Sweden are kept for hunting, and nothing but
hunting, so lots of people I meet some areas of Sweden think
that's the only thing they're good for, and are quite surprised
that I let mine go free in my home and sleep in my bed if they
want to. The ferret awareness here in Stockholm is much higher,
only very small children don't know what a ferret is and think
they're dogs.
Still, many ask if I keep them in a cage, so I presume it's not
too uncommon, but I have no way of knowing just how much. In
fact, we don't even know how many ferrets there are in Sweden.
I'm a member of our national ferret organization, which has some
600 members. Among us, I'd say keeping ferrets in cages is
virtually nonexistant, and as Lena Andersson who's written the
only Swedish language owners' manual also recommends (a minimum
of) two ferrets per home, I estimate we've got 3000++ ferrets
among our ranks.
600 homes with ferrets in our organization, that's slightly less
than 1:10 000, and even if the actual number is 10 times higher,
it's still far less than for example dogs, with 1:8. And this is
our problem, with such a low density it's really hard to spread
the information around. I'm personally convinced there are
thousands of ferrets out there who are maltreated out of nothing
but ignorance. There's a surprisingly high number of young
ferrets found 'lost' every year, but not reported lost:
Presumably their owners just kicked them out.
Hopefully, this situation will become better as our organization
matures (the current issue of magazine is #26, and at 6
issues/year it makes 4 years, which also fits reasonably well
with our founding mothers and fathers starting it when they were
around 20), for example my goal for the next 10 years is to make
insurance companies treat ferrets like cats and dogs.
Within our organization, we're well aware of the problems with
inbreeding, and recommend max 2-3 litters per female. We've also
started to keep track of their lineage. If we want to purchase a
puppie, there's a plentiful supply within the organization from
people who breed them in their homes. This is the only way we
think ferrets should be bred and sold. (We consider a 'normal'
price to be US$150, which is reasonable as raising one to 8 weeks
will cost close to US$100.)
The problem is pet stores. Out of ignorance (I hope!), many of
them class with rabbits and guinea pigs as "small animals". There
are farms selling them cheap at 5-6 weeks, so pet stores can sell
them cheaper than we can. Some advocate we should dump prices and
make the pet stores' market disappear; some point to statistics
showing the more you paid for it, the longer is it going to live;
I belong to those who think we should act to make the pet stores
only act as brokers only. They could make money with less work,
and we wouldn't have unsalable lonesome guaranteed-to-bite 12
week ferrets sitting in cages.
Yes, there are ferret farms here, with the same purpose as mink
farms. Therefore it's easy to assume some store bought ferrets
were really destined to become furs, but if so it's number-wise
only a marginal business for them. If it is so, that explains
some of the bad reputation ferrets (have) had.
Normally, we feed them high quality cat food, for example Iams or
Hill's. Kitten food is just for puppies. Personally, I feed
Allison and Natasha the same meat I eat about twice a week (fried
or boiled of course, and no bones). When you see how much (very
little!) comes out of the other end, you realize how much of the
cat food is just filler. They get the yellow of an egg to share
each week, and ground up cat vitamin pills every day. Apart from
the meat, I think it's pretty typical.
To finish, a quote from our magazine: "Unfortunately our pets are
suceptible to cancer. This fact has been known long, and this is
the reason they're used for research in for example USA. This is
not common in Sweden, but may become so."
--
Urban Fredriksson [log in to unmask]
[Posted in FML issue 0378]
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