>...A freind of mine told me about a kid who put a grass snak in with its
>farret and of kourse the ferret made short work of it.  Now the ferret
>being a wild animail and all wouldnt it get the tast for blood.  The
>reason I ask is I let lee run the house all day and put here away at
>night.  It has just found I hae a mouse and was wondering if it is a good
>idea to let lee out with the mouse not kought as i got a son of 4 and the
>last thing I need is for my ferret to tast blood it the wild tast blood
>thing stands true with ferrets.
 
Wild animal?  Ferrets have been domesticated for about 2,500 years.  Of
course, cats and dogs have been domesticated longer and some of them hunt,
so it's possible (though ferrets do a lot of food imprinting early on so
it may well not eat it IF it does hunt it).
 
If you check through posts on ferrets and mice in past FMLs you'll find the
entire range of responses by ferrets, including one whish adopted a wild
mouse in the house and the ferret and mouse would sit at the food dish with
the ferret carefully feeding the mouse her crunchies one by one.
 
ALWAYS directly supervise the interactions of ANY pet and a young child.
The REAL risk is that the child will startle the animal or make it feel
that it is in peril, or that the animal will become jealous due to a child
being treated very well while the animal is being treated badly.  This
holds across the range of pet animals.  In the records there are a large
amount of attacks by dogs and cats against children in such situations, and
a much lesser amount by ferrets and rabbits.  When you can not supervise
then separate the two.  Buy yourself a good ferret gate such as a
Weezilwatcher, which is advertised in all the major ferret mags since it's
worth the cost.  There have been studies of when attacks happen and they
almost always (for ANY type of pet) involve parental lack of supervision,
or parental neglect, or even parental abuse, and many have involved drugs
or alcohol having caused parents to also pass out.
 
Also, go to the "Modern Ferret" website
http://modernferret.com
and see if they have any copies of the back issue with the article on
ferrets and children.  If you can not supervise and can not provide
the ferret with enough exercise time out of a cage as well as enough
interaction with you then you need to find the ferret a new home to be
fairest to all.
[Posted in FML issue 3509]