I recently obtained a baby ferret for myself and my seven year old
child. It is really cute but it still bites too much. Because my
child plays with the ferret, I was wondering why NC was considering
a ban on Ferrets. Is it because they bite a lot or because of
disease (rabies?). I have discovered that most veterinarians here
in Pittsburgh don't want to treat ferrets. Some say they don't
know much about ferret problems; others claim that ferrets don't
make good pets.
 
[The reason is because all ferrets are dangerous wild animals, carry rabies,
eat babies, and get bad press.  .....   ;-{ Actually, it's quite simple:
most people don't know a damn thing about them and believe what they read,
most of which was written by people who don't know a damn thing about them.
Case in point: our local paper claimed that pet ferrets were black-footed
ferrets, of which there are only a few hundred left in the entire world.
Sort of like saying that the domestic short-haired cat was a tamed Snow
Leopard.
 
Ferrets don't bite much, compared with, say, my experience with Chinchillas,
rabbits or mice.  Firm training will usually work.  Either "Ferrets"
by Chuck and Fox Morton (Barron's pub.), or "Ferrets" by Wendy Winstead
(TFH pub) will help, particularly the first.  One or the other of these
two books are essential...
 
Ferrets don't carry rabies much - veterinary journals have a tendancy to
say "of the four cases reported in the literature...."
 
Ferrets don't eat babies much, compared to the several hundred disfiguring or
fatal injuries inflicted per million dogs, the most pessimistic statistics
for ferrets is in the .5 incidents/million ferrets range.
 
Ferrets *do* get bad press.]
 
Also my ferret has a bad case of ear mite. I took him to the vet
for it, but the problem still hasn't cleared up yet. Any
suggestions for how to treat this problem.  --Ed
 
[I'll see if I can find the name of the stuff that cleared up ours.
In actuality, it was some sort of soap that's particularly effective
for some unknown reason]
                                                                          
[Posted in FML 0066]