Hi, I’m Robin I’m the director of Ferrets First Rescue in Annandale, Virginia, and I have Pierre
here with me, we are here to teach you how to care for your ferrets. We’re going to tell you what
type of food ferrets require, allowable treats, what type of hygiene we need to do, the housing
requirements, equipment requirements, ferret proofing your home, what you need to do to play
with your ferret, recognition of illnesses and what to do. First let me start by telling you a little
bit about ferrets, ferrets are not rodents, they are really members of the Mastelid family. The
Mastelid family includes minks, polecats, otters, and skunks. Ferrets were originally bred from a
variety of polecats, they were bred for domestication and originally working animals. They were
used to protect the grain from rodents because being obligate carnivores they ate the rodents and
not the grains. They are also use to run electrical conduit, they’re used for hunting, they’ve sent
down rabbit holes to chase the rabbits out. Even to this day they are still use in airplanes and
aeronautics to run wirey. They require specific care, they fall somewhere between a dog and a
cat and the care that they require adding their disposition. They are 100 percent domesticated, if
you let a ferret go out in the wild it would not be able to take care of themselves, they would not
know where to find food, and even if it did kill a mouse, it wouldn’t know that would it needed
to sustain itself was on the inside of the fur. Ferrets are unique and wonderful creatures, as
director of Ferrets First, our goal is to rescue ferrets, rehome them, find foster homes, or provide
sanctuary for them. So, let’s begin by teaching you how to take care of your ferret.
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