Did you know that choosing the wrong ferret litter can be incredibly harmful to your ferret?
Your average domestic ferret is a fairly fragile creature, so you will need to make sure that you are careful about a lot of the choices you make. Whether it’s the cage or the harness, ferret owners get used to making decisions which have the ferret’s comfort and safety at heart.
The contents of the humble litter tray are commonly overlooked, by all but the most well informed ferret owners. Some of the most common pet litter products are highly unsuited to ferret use and I aim to tell you what to avoid.
The Litter to Avoid
These are the litter tray mistakes it’s easy to make.
1. Cat litter. Cat litter is very dusty and your ferret will breathe in that dust quite easily within the confines of a cage. Use of cat litter is probably the most common mistake made by ferret owners.
2. Clumping litter, also known as clay litter. Contains clays which may be ingested by your ferret. May cause blockage during use. This is another form of cat litter, that’s popular but controversial.
3. Corn cob litter. Made from ground corn cobs and marketed as a natural product. Can be very dusty and therefore unsuitable for ferrets.
4. Wood chip litter. Ferrets are incredibly sensitive to certain wood oils; as such products made from unrefined wood are unsuitable.
The Litter to Choose
Your ferret will thank you for making the right choices.
1. Ferret Litter. You won’t always see ferret litter in your local grocery store or supermarket, which is why people often go for cat litters. Finding a good pet store or online pet supplies retailer will help. A good litter will be specially formulated to have little or no dust.
2. Recycled newspaper litter. Products that are made directly from wood are unsuitable for ferrets but paper has been substantially processed and doesn’t contain the wood oil content of wood chip.
3. Newspaper. If you run out of ferret litter at an inconvenient time the absorbency of newspaper can’t be beaten in a pinch. Far more suitable than running to the all-night grocery store for cat litter if you have a litter oversight!
Click below for our top recommendations for ferret litter and litter pans:
Marshall Pet Ferret High Back Litter Pan
Purina Yesterdays News Ferret Litter 10lb
i’m glad that i found out about how bad kitty litter is for ferrets. every ferret owner needs to know about this.
I wouldn’t want to go back to using dusty kitty litter now.
I have to respectfully disagree. First, they now make clumping cat litter that has low to no dust. Second, unless you use barely any litter at all then you waste it by using regular Ferret Litter. And if that’s not enough, third, I have wasted a ton of money on ferret litter, of all sorts, because my ferrets won’t use it. There’s no sense in spending $10-15 on a small bag of ferret litter when I can buy 35 lbs of no/low dust, clumping cat litter. I’m always open to change, if the change makes sense.