Aloha
Broomie, please do ferrets a good deed and do NOT get any!  Here's why.
 
1. You have a four-year-old child.  That child is too young to play with
ferrets.
 
2. You think you can find a ferret that does not bite, that is impossible.
All ferrets bite, it's their natural way of being; it's a form of play for
them.  Ferrets are not dogs nor even cats.  They are 'true carnivores',
meaning they are meat eaters.  Therefore, they must 'practice game
hunting' when they play, it is a normal, natural part of being a ferret.
 
Yes, you can teach a ferret not to bite, even if they are hard, fierce
biters who have plenty of reasons not to like humans.  But you have a
four-year-old child and that child WILL play with the ferrets (or attempt
to play with them) and the ferrets WILL bite him, at which point the
four-year-old could react to the bite and cause serious harm or even cause
the death of the biting ferret.  Don't underestimate the ability of a
four-year-old to unintentionally hurt a small animal.  That goes for
five-year-olds too.  Ferrets are even more vulnerable to rough handling
than, say, a bunny rabbit.  They will NOT survive rough handling and a
four-year-old WILL 'rough handle'... he's FOUR years old!  If, as you say,
you won't let the four-year-old play with the ferrets, then when do YOU
intend to 'play with the ferrets'??  Ferrets have very distinct waking /
sleeping patterns and if you attempt to force a ferret to adjust its
instinctive patterns to YOUR patterns, you WILL SERIOUSLY SHORTEN ITS LIFE.
 
Ferrets are highly intelligent animals that have a very broad range of
emotional responses to events in their lives, just like human beings.
They hate, absolutely HATE!, being caged.  (By the way, so do horses, so
if you know any one who keeps a horse locked in a box stall with a short
run or no run at all, then you know someone with limited intellectual
capacity.... but that's for another forum!)
 
You must ask yourself why you want ferrets.  Is it for THEIR benefit...
or simply for your own?  You already know the answer to that!  I say, for
the sake of all ferrets, do not adopt or buy any.  Get yourself a little
dog or a cat... at least a cat can fight back, AND get out of the range
of a four-year-old... a ferret cannot.  I am always amused by people who
get bitten by a ferret then act shocked that the little creature could
actually 'break their skin'.  Yeah?  Do you know what they can do to
gophers?  I know!  Mine have eaten QUITE a few gophers over the years
(they hunt in a pack formation and what they do to a gopher when they
catch it is almost horrifying it is so 'natural'.)
 
If you want to get your child a pet, get him a goldfish, and when he is
six, get him a guinea pig.  Guinea pigs are docile, interactive little
animals who can be trained to jump over hurdles for lettuce (yeah, I've
had a number of guinea pigs as pets too).  They won't bite a kid (usually)
and they aren't likely to get into as much mischief as a ferret, plus they
can be somewhat oblivious to their surroundings (i.e., they live pretty
well in a big enough cage).
 
I have something to say about training ferrets to obey your commandments,
but I'll say it in another email for the benefit of all.
 
To reiterate, please do not get any ferrets.  Besides no one should have
only one or two ferrets... that too is not fair to the ferret.  If you
get one, it becomes unnaturally bonded to you, which is endearing in its
own way, but very selfish.  If you get two, they bond to each other, then
when one dies, the other suffers terribly over the loss.  When you have
ferrets, you should always have at least three, so when one dies the
others can console each other.
 
People, please be honest about ferrets!  They make good pets, but ONLY
if they are neutered.  This CLEARLY means they are not a domesticated
carnivore, unlike cats.  I've had whole male ferrets and eventually, for
the sake of the other ferrets, I've had to neuter it.  An unneutered male
will eventually try to the kill the neutered males and he will harry the
neutered females.  If you have a whole male and a couple of whole females,
you can have the male vascetomized.  Then when the females come into heat,
the male will mate with them and take them out of heat, even though he
cannot impregnate them.  (I actually like that idea... too bad it isn't
that way with men and women, it would be a great answer to the high
school boy's 'blue balls' lament.  ha hahhahahaha)
 
The main reason we keep ferrets as pets is for our own pleasure, and that,
in a way, is a sin because there's no particular 'benefit' to it for the
ferret, but we aren't going to stop keeping ferrets even though we know
the truth of that.  But at least we could be more responsible and not keep
ferrets at ALL if we are going to endanger their lives by keeping them
around little children or if we are going to keep them in cages for our
own convenience.  I mean, come on!  Unless you have a cage the size of a
room, it's just a cage and the ferrets know it.  They can be very happy
living their lives inside a house as long as they can see outside and get
plenty of fresh air, but they are FAR happier living with me on my small
acreage, because they can GO outside.  I don't worry about ADV or rabies
or distemper... I give my ferrets their shots myself (not as big a deal as
you might think) because I take care of my horses too.  If they have ADV,
so be it.  But so far I've not had a ferret die before the age of 9 years
6 months and usually they live several years longer than that, so I must
be doing something right.  For example, I would NEVER take a ferret to a
'public show', there lies insanity and the DEFINITE possibility of ferret
harm.  You want to show your ferrets?  Then get a digital camera and show
em online.
 
So Broomie, please do not get any ferrets. end of my comment.
 
/Ferret mommy
[Posted in FML issue 3753]