THEY sleep for large amounts of the day, yet when they wake up they’re bundles of energy; they’re incredibly intelligent, yet just as cheeky; and they inevitably outgrow their parents. The first youngsters that spring to mind may well be human but, as RUSSELL BENNETT explains, ferrets share many of the same personality traits and later this month they’ll have their moment in the spotlight at the 2015 Parklea Pakenham and District Agricultural and Horticultural Show.
“Don’t ever think that a person owns the ferret – the ferret really owns the person.”
WHEN many visitors to the show first lay an eye on the animal they’ll likely be asleep but they’ll have their bedding and cage done up with their toys so people can see what they like to play with.
Visitors can have a look at the different colours and sizes of the ferrets, pat them, and even encourage them to race.
Owners of the animals will often let children race them, but only under strict adult supervision. The races, a unique attraction of the show, are run in much the same way as normal running races – in heats, with semi-finals and a final.
Ferrets are domesticated animals – cousins of the weasel and otter. According to the New South Wales Ferret Welfare Society, “it is believed that ferrets were first domesticated in Europe some several thousand years ago.
“They behaviour and personality is somewhere between cats and dogs, although they are similar in size.
“They grow between 45 to 60 centimetres in length with females generally being smaller, and can live for up to 12 years.”
Female ferrets are called jills, males are called hobs, and baby ferrets are called kits.
While some ferrets are particularly cuddly, others are fiercely independent. Their personalities and temperaments vary, just like any other pet.
Jan Smith from the Victorian Ferret Society told the Gazette how she first became interested in the animal.
“My mother was a paraplegic for the last five years of her life and she used to watch The Midday Show with Mike Walsh, and he had a band leader who owned many ferrets,” she said.
“He often brought them in to the studio and my mother was fascinated by watching Geoff Harvey handle all these ferrets running all over the place. She just became absolutely enamoured with the animal.
“She was having a really bad time not long before she died and I thought that perhaps the thing that would help her most was having a ferret of her own.
“I got her a baby ferret and we learned how to look after it together. After Mum died I still had the ferret to look after but then I was just absolutely hooked. I moved to Melbourne and contacted the society and became involved. That was many years ago now but that’s how I became involved – Mum watching them on TV.”
Jan explained that Australian ferrets hadn’t changed in well over 100 years – they’re not imported, or exported.
“The ferrets are basically what came originally in the first few years,” she said.
“They’re carnivores and they’re direct descendants of the Siberian and European polecat.
“They’re very useful to the farmer in keeping his rabbit population down – they’ve been used for hunting over the years since they were first imported.”
Jan says ferrets do hunt rabbits, but due to their diets don’t tend to eat them.
“Today when we use them for hunting – and there are a number of people who do – they wear tracking collars with a GPS so they can be tracked underground to see where they are.
“They don’t tend to kill rabbits much down the hole because their own nutrition is so well balanced. There’s no instinctive killing.
“What they want to do is chase the rabbits out of the burrow, where the hunter catches them.
“Some hunters do use rifles and not just the ferret, but it’s a little bit dangerous because very often the ferret is on the tail of the rabbit as it comes out.”
Jan said the Victorian Ferret Society had some particularly strict guidelines – or a code of ethics – for hunting rabbits.
“They must be immediately killed and not allowed to suffer in any way,” she said.
“The ferrets are also never to be left behind, or smoked out.”
Jan said there were many antiquated hunting practices no longer used by today’s hunter or farmer.
But hunting only touches on one arm of the society. Another is education.
“The society attends a lot of shows and the aim is to educate the general populace and teach people how to look after their ferrets,” Jan said.
A large number of ferrets are only used as pets – meaning a third arm of the society becomes even more crucial; animal welfare.
The welfare arm looks after animals that are lost or, for whatever reason, may have escaped.
The Victorian Ferret Society tries to reunite them with their owners, and when that isn’t possible, it looks after the animals and re-homes them.
The society also de-sexes the animals because of the large size of the already existing population.
Ferrets need a diet that’s high in protein, high in fat, very low in carbohydrates and has no grains.
As they grow they become nippy because that’s how the mother teaches them and that’s how they play with each other – by constant nipping.
When the animals get to 12 weeks old, Jan said they’re considered to be teenagers.
“And, like teenagers of every species, they are quite difficult!” she laughed.
“This is a time when they need to be trained not to bite, and to understand that human skin is softer than theirs. They’re trained in a number of ways within the society. We’re quite strict on it but it must be gentle. The ferrets are never hit or thrown. This does happen within the community but we strongly advise against it.”
The society tends to be quite cautious when it comes to advising young people when to get a ferret as a pet.
“We encourage them not to get one until they’re a bit older – about nine or 10,” Jan said.
“When they’re younger than that the parents have a big involvement in looking after the ferret and very often you can look at the parents’ faces and know ‘this is not for me’ so we tell the children to come back when they’re a bit older and see us and we’ll have another talk then.
“We discourage people from just taking the ferrets for granted. We try and talk to them about what they need to do and what they need to look after, and all the things that a ferret gets up to.”
As Jan says: “Don’t ever think that a person owns the ferret – the ferret really owns the person”.
The Parklea Pakenham and District Agricultural and Horticultural Show will be held on 21 March at PB Ronald Reserve in Henry Street, Pakenham.
For more information call show secretary Anita Rovers on 0408 117 709, or email pakenhamshow1@bigpond.com.
