08/28/2025
I was contacted by a woman wanting to adopt a ferret. She has five children involved in various school activities and her husband works out of town five days a week. I explained this isn't a good time to get a ferret, as she already has her hands full.
She said her family had ferrets as kids and had a blast with them. Yes, but did her family have five kids and one parent at home with them for five days at a time? She can remember the fun things about having had a ferret as a kid, because the parents were responsible for the main clean-up and expense. She wasn't happy about my input.
There's nothing I can do. I have a responsibility to the ferrets to not send them into potential danger. This is especially true after having to recently euthanize the four month old ferret that was stepped on and injured by the child.
I sent info on other rescues she can contact, saying I already know their policies are to not adopt to anyone with children. I will at least adopt to families with children. I'm just uncomfortable doing so with five children and one parent.
CHILDREN and FERRETS - Most rescues don't recommend having a ferret with multiple children or toddlers. Having a ferret is like having a toddler running around, only one that can get into very small spaces. There are reasons as noted below. This rescue does adopt to families with children. I just like for everyone to be aware of the dangers. These dangers apply to children of any age.
Every parent says they won't let their kids be around or hold the ferret. A parent can't watch a child all the time. Otherwise, we'd never have ER visits for them.
Ferrets will eat nearly anything small dropped on the floor and get intestinal blockages. Kids drop stuff on the floor all the time. It’s impossible to catch everything they drop. This can mean life or death to a ferret. I've known of ferrets that have eaten and got blockages from a small spring from a pen, ear pod, phone cover, pieces of cloth from a hammock (because they were bored), string, etc. Anything foam WILL be eaten and can create a blockage!
Ferrets get ulcers easily from stress. Stress can be from being handled too much, being handled the wrong way a lot, too much noise, too much activity around it and so on. Ulcers are difficult to treat and some ferrets end up dying from them. Noise needs to be kept to a minimum with no screaming and no loud music or TV. The ferret should not be handled much by young children and only with adult supervision. The ferret needs to have at least 16 hours of quiet time each day (at different times of day) where there aren't people around it.
Ferrets can catch the flu, Covid, sinus infections, strep throat, respiratory infections, pink eye and bacterial infections from humans. This can mean death to a ferret.
Any animal will bite if something happens that it doesn't like. So, if the ferret is pressed too hard, held too long, not allowed to go where it wants to go, etc., it may bite the person. Young people do not always recognize or care when they are doing these things. When they bite from fear or stress, they will often break the skin.
Most ferrets do bite some when they're playing. None of the ferrets in the rescue bite, except for playing, but I have bite marks on my hands and arms from when they get playing too rough.
It's very easy for a person to injure a ferret and not mean to. Rescues get a lot of injured ferrets in and nearly all those injuries were caused by children and usually by accident. Ferrets are so fast and wiry, they get out of hands fast and fall to the floor or run past as a person is walking and get accidentally kicked. As an example, a rescue did a ferret education day at a school. The ferret wiggled out of the teacher's hands and fell to the floor. It died. This is much more likely to happen to a child.
Ferrets are very fast and very, very good at escaping. Kids are bad about closing doors behind them or closing them tightly. A ferret will always investigate a door that has been opened and will escape if it can. Once out, it can be very difficult to find them, if at all.
Young people tend to respond to peer pressure. While your child may be good around the ferret, the child’s friend may not and can hurt the ferret or pressure your child into doing something that shouldn’t be done.
