FWIW ferrets are domesticated vs. domestic. Domestic implies captive born wild animals - pet skunks are "domestic skunks" but they are not domesticated. "Domestication (from Latin domesticus) or taming is the process whereby a population of animals or plants, through a process of selection, becomes accustomed to human provision and control. In the Convention on Biological Diversity a domesticated species is defined as a 'species in which the evolutionary process has been influenced by humans to meet their needs'[1]."
Domestication - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
boy aleron, it's a good thing it never gets near 70 in OH
Guess so
Honestly, I can't post on ferret forums because thanks to the internet there is such widespread misinformation about their care that I can't really find common ground with most other ferret owners. Yet, I've owned ferrets longer than the majority of people posting on ferret forums, have bred ferrets, rescued ferrets and have had ferrets all live long, healthy lives once I stopped caring for them in the typical American way. One of
the ferret vets in the country (possibly world) said that my Morgan was one of the oldest ferrets he's ever worked on and was surprised at how good she looked for being so old. She was about 10 at the the time and had eaten raw food from 8 weeks on and was only vaccinated once - at the commercial breeder's before I got her at 8 weeks old. Unfortunately she was spayed there too and did end up with Adrenal Disease when she was about 8 years old. But still, pretty good
FWIW Kibble did kill plenty of my early ferrets, as well as eight of my friend's ferrets. Ferrets in North America are unhealthy compared to European ferrets but it isn't because of the breeding or at least not entirely (and it isn't because of the "mills" necessarily, although they are a common target). In the 90s private ferret breeders were sure American ferrets were unhealthy because of poor genetics, so they started importing ferrets from lines with good longevity. Unfortunately, once here those imported ferrets and their offspring, they died young of the same things our's do - namely Adrenal and Insulinoma. Of course, the craze of wanting ferrets with symptoms of neural crest disorders (cute white markings that bring some pretty bad defects with them) didn't do much to help ferrets but the private breeders were/are equally guilty of breeding for them as the commercial breeders. But it by far isn't the only or even the main problem with American ferrets.
The main problem is that Americans want "pre-packaged pet ferrets". They want to buy them kits from petstores already altered and descented (necessary? healthy? who cares - it's cheaper and you don't want them to stink!), keep them in cages exposed to unnatural light cycles (cause you know, they're pets), vaccinate them every year (or they
will die! :yikes
and feed them pre-packaged food that says on the label it's for ferrets. Now ferrets are more commonly kept as pets in Europe and as such, are seeing a rise in health problems similar to our ferrets. American owners will dispute all day long that ferrets are just fragile creatures but really, ferrets are actually hardy animals if cared for properly. Their purpose for domestication was never as pets but as working animals, owned by rabbit hunters. Ferrets traditionally were/are housed in outdoor enclosures and fed a "carcass diet". Working ferrets are still kept in that manner in places where it is still legal to hunt with them. I do believe pet ferret owners are well meaning and think they are caring properly for their ferrets. Plenty of books, magazines and forums support the "American way" of ferret care. It's just that the results don't tend to support the methods.
“What is right is not always popular and what is popular is not always right.â€
