Advice on breeding working ferrets

This sobering reality forced me to have a good, hard look at my own ferrets. For them to survive and prosper as I wanted, I realised I had to expand, build a better team, weed out the weak and concentrate on the traits I wanted to cement in my strain. I had to carve out a plan that wasn’t a short-term fix but a vision for the future, the rest of my life even.

About four years ago, I put the call out and, along with a number of rabbiters, scoured the country for good working stock, examining ferrets’ lineage, their characters and how they worked. Kits were collected, raised and worked hard under my careful eye. After much deliberation and work, out of the 28 I received I kept only a single hob — but what a hob it was.

Guilty of not breeding from such quality specimens a lot earlier, I was almost starting from scratch, while building on the good ferrets I already had. My small garden was rich with mustelid aroma as these ferrets matured.

Instilling good instinct

I wanted to breed a line of good hobs of a modest build: big enough to boss rabbits and show a rabbit or two, yet be as soft as a lamb in the hand. The jills needed to be robust; sturdy enough to withstand the rigours of a hard season yet able to get stuck in and not flirt with a rabbit. I wanted ferrets that knew what a rabbit was, and were light-coloured or white and unrelated to any polecat or runty micro-ferrets that have blighted many a strain.

Those that were here and the single remaining hob were put to bed, so to speak. After a few years of breeding, working and weeding out the unsociable and/or unworkable ferrets, I now have a good squad of ferrets I am happy with. It’s a solid foundation to build from, but it still is not quite enough, and after this year’s young have been worked I hope to have enough unrelated hobs to serve whatever jill is worthy of breeding from. The rest will be castrated, ensuring no squabbles and ferretable hobs 12 months of the year.

I have a lot of potential wriggling and squealing in the hutches at the moment. I don’t know what ratio of male to females I have, as I resist looking at them too early — no matter when I look, they will still be either male or female!

Dry food in the summer

All my adults during the summer are fed dry food (Alpha Ferret Feast) to cut back on the flies, but my kits are fed just one food, rabbit. Until they have had a season under their belt, this association cements the smell, taste, touch and texture of what I expect them to seek out in the unforgiving environment that is the rabbit warren. This prey drive is what makes a ferret a ferret.