If your ferret gets out of the house, without a leash, danger and difficult circumstances could easily follow. That much is easy to see, but what about the risks to a ferret, which exist within an ordinary home? Thankfully, there are plenty of steps you can take to make your house safer for your ferret.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at some of these steps, which can keep your pet out of harm’s way.
Ferrets and Household Burrowing
Ferrets will try to sneak into the smallest possible holes, at any given moment. It’s an instinctive thing for them. If they find a gap in between furniture, floors or walls, they’ll be in there like a shot. This can lead to a number of problems for the ferret.
Firstly, they could get exposed to electrical cables, in wall or floor cavities. The risk to a ferret is increased by the fact that they like to chew things, not knowing that chewing on a cable could send them a shock of over 200 volts.
Secondly, your ferret could get stuck in the spaces that they try to enter. Wall and floor spaces are a lot more rigid than tube toys and natural burrows. Ferrets can often panic when it comes to getting stuck, so it’s important that you keep them calm and ease them out gently.
Of course, the best way to avoid all this is to make sure you plug any gaps in the house, before you get a ferret. Take a good look around and make sure you’ve left no areas that a curious ferret could enter. Try to put yourself in the ferret’s place, when identifying gaps.
Other Household Risks
Household appliances and storage spaces can also pose significant risks to your ferret. So, it’s particularly important that you keep this in mind, whenever you have your ferret outside of his/her cage.
Ferrets have a tendency to try and take a nap in any washing basket they may find. So, if you have washing waiting to go into the machine, it’s a good idea to make sure you check the basket carefully, before you start a wash, as washing machines aren’t the correct way to clean a ferret.
Ventilation tubes for dryers are another thing that’ll provide great interest to a ferret, as they are similar to tube toys. Risk of injury or getting stuck is high. Keeping the tubes out of ferret accessibility is a must.
Storage spaces, cupboards and cabinets have a dual risk to your pet ferret. First, there’s the perennial risk of them getting stuck, not to mention the risk by the contents. There are too many things to list here, that could damage your ferret, though detergents, coffee and anti-freeze should give you an idea of what we’re thinking about.
