"The intact ferrets that I referred to were five years of age or older."
 
At the moment I have 24 ferrets and out of that 24 I have eight who are
five or under, four that are six to ten and twelve that are ten to
thirteen, my oldest ferret died in 2005 just a few days before her 15th
birthday and the only problem she had in her life was kidney stones.
 
In the past all of my dead ferrets were taken to the veterinary college
and post-mortems were done on all of them, this started in the time when
the life of ferrets here in the UK were just starting to become popular
as pets and by that time I had owned ferrets for about ten years and at
the same time all of my ferrets were kept as pets indoors, they had their
own room in which they slept and because I lived in the middle of a wood
with no street lights they were put to bed in a darkened room.
 
"Keeping ferrets outdoors,"
 
The only reason that my ferrets are kept outdoors is because of my
present landlord.
 
"A natural or raw diet would probably also be ideal, but here again, it
isn't practical for most ferret owners"
 
Why is it not practical?  Surly every house hold in America has the
opportunity to go to the supermarket and buy raw meat for themselves so
why can't they buy a little extra for the ferrets, I buy a lot of raw
chicken and other meat just for the ferrets from a supermarket.
 
"being housed outside, in a hutch, sleeping in straw"
 
My ferrets are in a shed that is split into three levels for three groups
of ferrets, the ferrets get shredded paper as bedding and untill quite
recently they only got naurale light.  The light situation may now
change as more houses are being built on every bit of spair ground in
the village.
 
"I'm just giving my perspective and I respect each and every owner's
right to the choice of how they keep their ferrets"
 
I am not saying that just because this is how I keep my ferret, then you
MUST keep your the same way, I am trying to get over to new owners that
if they change just one or two things then they maybe giving their
ferrets a longer and healthier life.
 
At the end of the day people will only treat their pets in a way that
they feel is right, but if one person changes one thing, then from small
acorns mighty oaks grow.
 
--
Please contact me I can be of any help, I am not a vet and in the past 32
years none of my animals have visited my vet for anything other than
routine check up, plus post-mortems are done on any ferrets that do not
reach double figures
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/intact-ferrets/
Come see my ferrets
http://www.geocities.com/houseferrets13uk/Tonys_Pets.html
Some of our fund-raising events
http://www.geocities.com/houseferrets13uk/Show.html
http://www.webspawner.com/users/ferretwelfair/index.html
http://www.headway.org.uk/ The brain Injury association
Successful Internet Libel Case
http://technology.guardian.co.uk/news/stor...1737001,00.html
[Posted in FML issue 5221]