I.—WHAT A FERRET IS.
Our dictionaries say that "ferret" as a verb active means to search out carefully. This is certainly an important function of the animal, but, as it belongs to the Musteline or flesh-eating weasel family, it has also inherited these animals' boldness and savageness, though tempered and exercised in a very useful direction, i. e., of killing off the most bothersome and numerous of our vermin for us. It is rather a well-known family, the one to which the ferret belongs, including such animals as the sable, which furnishes the highly-prized fur, the skunk, with its not as greatly valued perfume, the ermine, the color of which is likened to the driven snow and whose dress forms the badge of royalty, the weasel, from which artists obtain their finest brushes, the marten, the badger, and the otter. The shape of these animals, the characteristics being strongly marked in the ferret, is long, slender, and serpentine (snake-like and winding), their teeth are very sharp, the muzzle and legs short. Their average food is rats, rabbits, and birds. Members of this class are found in all climates and parts of the earth.
It is necessary to state, primarily, that there is no such thing as a wild ferret; it is domesticated in the same degree as a cat or a dog. The wild animal from which the ferret is bred is the weasel, just as the dog is originally of wolf extraction, and the cat of the same class as the tiger or lion. The ferret is also interbred with the different species of the musteline tribe, such as the mink, marten, polecat, and fitch. These are nevertheless all weasels in the same way that terriers, black and tans, Newfoundlands, and poodles all belong to the family of dogs. The ferret's origin has been traced by some to Spain, by others again to the northwestern part of Africa, and by still different writers as far away from us as Egypt, but it was first used authentically for ratting and rabbiting in Great Britain, where it is most highly prized, its merits understood, and where almost every one is as familiar with it as he is with the nature of his house cat. The public here in America is yet but indifferently acquainted with the ferret. At an exhibition of ferrets made by the writer at Madison Square Garden there was about one out of every fifteen persons that knew the name of the animal at all, and the ferrets were alternately designated as skunks, weasels, guinea-pigs, raccoons, monkeys, woodchucks, kittens, puppies, squirrels, rabbits, chipmunks, rats (an animal for which they are commonly mistaken), hares, martens, otters, small kangaroos, muskrats, beavers, seals, and, ridiculous as it may seem, small bears. The American race of ferrets has been bred to a high degree of intelligence, as the proper medium of wildness in the hunt and docility to its keeper has been obtained principally through the efforts of the present writer. This, however, has only been brought about after a great deal of close study and experiment in cross breeding, until now the American animal is greatly preferable to its more sluggish and vicious English brother.
II.—CHARACTER AND APPEARANCE.
Every individual ferret has a character and distinct look of its own, although there are some ugly, scarred, and bony specimens with game legs and glass eyes, still the ferret, when in good condition, is a pretty little animal, with soft fur and kittenish ways, and can be handled and fondled after you have become mutually acquainted, the same as a cat. It can never be made as trustworthy as a dog, because it does not possess as much intelligence. The general colors are white, yellow, and a mixture of black, brown, gray, and tan, varied with gray and white patches over and under the neck and body. The tint runs according to the predominance of either mink, marten, fitch, or polecat blood. The ferret is essentially a useful animal, and is not valued for its good looks, but the purely colored, pink-eyed, white ferret, with its plump form and beautiful, glossy coat of a creamy shade, does certainly not present an ungainly appearance. The dark ones are a sprightly company, too, with their friendly, sparkling black eyes and social nature. There is no standard size—there are large and small breeds, the age having nothing to do with its inches. Some ferrets never get to be bigger than a size beyond a dock rat, while I have had others as large as a full grown cat. There are ferrets more valuable as hunters than others on account of their wiry forms, their age, experience, and intelligence. I have small, homely ferrets, which persons not understanding ferret peculiarities would pick out as the most miserable and stupid of a lot, but which in reality are choice hunting stock. There is no preference for small or large ferrets, as they are both good for different purposes. Ferrets are cleanly animals both in appearance and in their habits. Their jumping and climbing powers are limited. There is a curious thing about the ferret that reminds us of its kinsmanship with the gentle-tempered skunk, for when it is teased or aggravated (showing this also by bristling up the hair of its tail) it emits a pungent odor from a gland it has underneath the tail. This only happens in extreme cases, otherwise it is peaceful enough except toward its natural prey. Different lots of ferrets, strangers to each other, will not agree, and should not be put together, as there is a risk of a deadly battle. It is a pleasant enough thing to watch a number of healthy ferrets at their antics. On the writer's breeding grounds, where the pens are always kept neatly painted and the sawdust carefully leveled on the floor, making it look like a lawn in yellow, they generally huddle up in a snug heap, presenting a confused jumble of heads, tails, blinking eyes, and indistinguishable masses of fur. This is during the daytime, after they have been fed. Toward dusk, or when they are hungry again, they disentangle themselves from the bunch, one by one, and after they have properly yawned and stretched themselves they are very lively. They frisk and gambol about like lambs in a pasture, without the odd, long-legged appearance of the lamb, but they make up for this by humping up their backs like small dromedaries. They get to tumbling over one another in a comic, clown-like way, they run, galop, trot, and hop, and sit erect on their haunches. This latter action they perform in expectation of a mouse, a special delicacy with them, though but a mouthful, from the keepers leaning over the pens above. Upon the whole they seem to be enjoying life immensely, presenting quite a study of animal contentment and happiness.
III.—RAT HUNTING.
When the word rat is mentioned in connection with the ferret, our pacific scene is changed to one of war and bloodshed. The savage instincts of the animal are then aroused, and the rat itself knows, when it has caught the ferret's scent, that its time has come. There are no two animals more deadly enemies than these, the ferret being constructed in such a way that it is best adapted to hunt the rat in the rat's own haunts. Wherever a rat can go a ferret can go, because the latter's body is as flexible as rubber, and it can squeeze itself up, draw itself out, and flatten its limbs into a likeness of a New England buckwheat cake, as if there wasn't a bone in its body. The weasels, and nearly all wild animals of this division, after killing the prey suck the blood, eat the brain, leave the rest of the body untouched, and then proceed to annihilate the next victim, repeating the operation. Here is where the difference between the ferret and the other animals of its tribe comes in, for it does not content itself with brain food and such ethereal substances, but devours the whole carcass with a fine relish, not even leaving the tail or the skin. It bolts the bones and everything else thereto appertaining. It is rather an appalling experience for the first time to hear the hungry ferret's teeth go crunch, crunch, as they meet in the neck of some fat rodent. This sound bears a resemblance to a cowboy chewing radishes. A very hungry ferret would commence to devour the rat before it had thoroughly made its exit into the sweet subsequently. In using ferrets to clear a house of rats, they should be allowed to nose through the building during the night with the same freedom accorded a domestic animal. During the day they are kept in the pen. The reason a ferret should be hunted with in the night is that it sees better then, and that it is instinctively better fitted for hunting. The rats also become more venturesome at this time. When the ferrets are to be hunted with, feed them slightly, as feeding blunts their hunting capabilities and makes them worthless. After a good feed a ferret will sleep harder than any other domestic animal. Sometimes you will find a ferret so hard asleep that you can take him up, shake him, and then put him down again without waking him. If you are inexperienced in the ways of the ferret, you will imagine you have a corpse on your hands. But the corpse will in a short time open its eyes, shake itself, wag its tail, and then trot around with the others. When a ferret sleeps he will let his companions tramp all over his head and body without allowing himself to be disturbed in the least. When they have been fed too well they will sleep and be of no further use. If these over-fed ferrets are in a pen and you put rats in for them to kill, they will not wake up even if the rats crawl all over them, although the rodents are scared into fits and are trying to get away with all their might and main. A hungry ferret around a house will go scenting around as hunting dogs do, to discover any trace or hiding-place of his natural prey. This in itself is enough to drive all the rats to Jericho and make them stay there as long as the ferrets are kept around, for the rodents have an acute bodily fear of these prowling detectives. A ferret's being bitten by a rat happens only in extreme cases, but sometimes in cellars and other places that are swarming with rats, ferrets that have first been put in have to contend with great odds, and come out with some bruises. Therefore if even a good, old hunting ferret should be bitten by a rat, he should not be used until the wound is perfectly healed again, even if it should take two or three weeks. The ferret is very peculiar in this respect, and if this rule is not observed he may be spoiled as a hunter forever afterwards. The ferrets hunt downward, and if put on the upper or top floors in the evening they will turn up in the morning down in the cellar driving the rats before them. They should be kept in a dry place, and they rapidly get to know their pens, returning to them and waiting to be put in when through hunting. With a moderate amount of attention they will thrive and prosper in their work of extermination.
IV.—FOOD.
Ferrets should always be anxious for their meals. Rats are good ferret food; but never feed dead rats, as you run the risk of the rats having been previously poisoned, this also transmitting itself to the ferrets. If there are plenty of rats in the place the ferrets will be able to do their own choice marketing; otherwise, when not hunting, feed them either crackers and milk or bread and milk, with a pan of water always at hand in warm weather. Raw meat can be given them two or three times a week, but never feed liver or salt meat. When milk is not handy use water instead. For a pair of ferrets use a shallow pan for their food, the pan to be as large as an ordinary saucer. Once a day is enough to feed them. When you wish to hunt your ferrets at night feed them in the morning, and they will be in the proper hunting condition when night comes. Particular relishes are chicken heads, duck heads, rabbit heads, and sparrows. Dilute the milk occasionally, and change off with the bread or crackers soaked in water instead of milk. Besides this you can feed your ferrets the same as you do your cat, with the exception above mentioned. Ferrets enjoy their meals heartily—they grunt and smack their lips with much satisfaction when fed; particularly so when feasting off a rat, as there is nothing they enjoy more than a good, big, healthy one—turning the rodent inside out and ploughing out the interior with great exactness.