Synonyms for ferret are raid, pillage, and siege… and these are perfect for this exotic mammal, the ferret! These beautiful, inquisitive, active, fun, and sneaky animals, if left unattended, will search every inch of any area it can get into. Therefore, anyone looking into getting one as a pet must carefully understand where they are going to house it. Again, words to the wise, do your homework!

Ferrets are incredibly adorable. When you hold one, especially a young one, it’s hard to say no. And if you bring your young son or daughter with you, forget about it! Before you do that, carefully consider what you are getting yourself into. Again, under the right circumstances, ferrets make wonderful pets. They need a lot of attention AND supervision. In fact, it should be supervision and attention. In fairness, I have only owned one, so I am no expert, and I may have owned one that was overly active. There may be ferrets out there that are not as active as mine was. Don’t get me wrong either – we adored ours, he was great fun; we played hide and seek (kind of, lol) and hockey (no, he wasn’t the puck) and overall it was a great experience. However, ferrets (mine) as far as I know, cannot be house trained, which means as long as he or she is out – you will find a LOT of poop, anywhere, sometimes in hard to reach places. If you don’t keep up with it, daily, it will stink and that, together with hard to find urine stains quickly becomes a nuisance. Cute and cuddly (by the way, most ferrets cannot be held for very long) is soon replaced by grrrr, at least by the adults. After some time, the ferret is sent to its cage and that kind of defeats the purpose.

Another issue early on is that ferrets like to chew. They are not picky; anything they come across will do, as long as it will fit between their relatively sharp little teeth. And this includes a fold of human skin, and although the cute little baby does not mean anything, OUCH! Of course, magnify this ouch by ten or twenty for a child! This can be reduced some over time with a sharp “NO!” and a slight tap on your friend’s nose, as he gets older, the chewing will slow down too. Like kittens, ferrets must go through teething; there is no way around it. One option is to buy an adult ferret off the bat and skip that cute stage altogether.

Ferrets are cute and fun. If you can build the right habitat for one, they can be a great addition to your family. One idea would be to section off an area of an unfinished basement and build a secure, very secure, wall say ten feet by ten feet, with a carpeted area and a little ferret house where your exotic mammal can go and sleep or rest if he wants to. Inside his playpen area, you could put some ferret toys near his plentiful water and food. If you do this, please make sure that you don’t forget about him down there… ferrets need and love a LOT of attention!

Thanks for reading, do your homework and best of luck,

Boston John