Hello all!  As you may have noticed from my subject line, I will be starting
a ferret shelter shortly.  I realize that it is costly, and has its ups and
its downs.  However, my husband and I love ferrets so much, and we cannot
bear to think of any ferret homeless, or in a bad situation.  We have been
owned by ferrets for 3 years now, and hope to be owned by them for the rest
of our lives.  My only obstacle so far has been my husband, not because he
didn't want to help out ferrets, but because he said he could not adopt any
out -- he wants to keep them all.  :> Money is also an issue, but I figured
when will we have money to spare?  Not likely in the near future.  We just
moved into a big old house a few months ago, and so we now have the room.
We also just got a knowledgable ferret vet at the animal clinic that we go
to.  (hurrah hurrah!!!)
 
For those of you out there who currently run ferret shelters,  I would very
much appreciate it if you could e-mail me information about starting and
running a ferret shelter.  Some of my questions are:
   1. How do you get the word out to a widespread area that you will take
      in ferrets?
   2. Do you need to do anything legally?  Such as get any permits or
      anything like that?
   3. What is the best way to keep your ferrets from catching any new
      diseases?  We have only have 3 rooms in our house with doors.  All
      the rest are open doorways, so putting new ferrets in separate rooms
      would not be easy after the first few.  The other rooms are
      separated by baby gates with vinyl on one side in the necessary
      doorways.
   4. Do you let your rescue ferrets run around in shifts, and if so, how
      much time do you usually let them run around versus being in a cage?
   5. What are some of the ways that you screen prospective    adopters?
   6. What are some good ideas for fundraising?  The animal clinic here
      has already agreed to give us some kind of discount, they have not
      yet decided what.  But we barely scrape by as it is.
 
These are just some of the questions that I can think of off of the top of
my head.  I know those of you who run ferret shelters out there are very
busy.  However I would really appreciate whatever information you could give
me.  If you can think of anything else besides what I have already asked,
again, I would greatly appreciate it.  I live in Hastings, NE, and am a
member of LOS-NE.  As of right now, I am not aware of any other shelters in
the immediate area around Hastings.  You can e-mail me at [log in to unmask]
Thank you very much for any help you can give me.  :>
 
Dooks and kisses to all,
Shelley Knudsen and
The ferrets - Sasha, Seera, Spectre, Podo, Target, Jacob, Zephlyr
The cats - Bones and Squirt
The dog - Jenna
[Posted in FML issue 1661]