FERRET MILLS

FERRET BUSINESS

Animal agriculture is about exploiting and using animals for profit. Animal agriculture views animals as inventory and nothing more. Their only concern is making money from the animal. We have all heard of puppy mills and the horrible cruelties that they inflict on dogs. But so many more animals that are sold at pet shops come from mills. Rats, lizards, snakes, hamsters, guinea pigs and ferrets. These mills are all part of animal agriculture and are only concerned about money, not the animals.

My son has a pet ferret named “Twitch”. When my son comes for a visit, he often brings Twitch along. I love ferrets. They are sweet, very tame and playful. A group of ferrets is called a “business”. About a month ago, Twitch became ill, and I took him to the vet for my son. Our family vet, Elmbrook Veterinary Clinic, has great experience with all types of animals. I take my ducks to him when they get ill.  He told me Twitch probably had a cancer which is very common in ferrets. Life span of a ferret normally would be 10-12 years, but in today’s pet shop ferrets he is only seeing 5-7 years. Their life spans are nearly cut in half because of the way they are bred.

Most pet shop ferrets come from ferret mills. Marshalls, Triple F Farms, Path Valley, and Real Canadian Ferrets are the main ones. These ferret mills not only make money selling ferrets to the major pet stores, they sell ferrets to labs and universities to be used in animal testing and experiments. Marshalls not only has a ferret mill; they operate a puppy mill where they sell dogs for animal testing. These mills have multi-million dollar contracts with universities and labs, including the CDC. Medical schools will often use ferrets to teach students how to shove breathing tubes down babies’ throats.

These mills are only interested in one thing—profit. Many will spay, neuter, and descent their ferrets themselves, without a vet. Vets cost money. Ferrets are raised in overcrowded, dirty conditions. Their cages have wire bottoms and very often young ferrets will fall through the wires and be killed. The cages are stacked on top of each other, so waste from the upper ferrets hit the lower ones. Often the temperature in their quarters will reach over 100 degrees. It’s very much how factory farms and egg farms treat their larger animals.  Peta did an undercover investigation into Triple F farms in 2011  http://www.peta.org/features/investigation-exposes-cruelty-ferret-mill/

http://investigations.peta.org/animals-gassed-frozen-petco-petsmart/?utm_campaign=Pet%20Trade%20Investigation%20&utm_source=PETA%20E-Mail&utm_medium=Alert

These ferret mills practice closed colony breeding where animals are kept in cramped cages and there is often incest. It only takes a few generations of such poor breeding practices before genetic weaknesses, abnormalities, diseases, and a shortened life span show up.  A few of the diseases ferrets eventually get from these poor breeding practices are cancer, adrenal disease and insulinoma. 

Ferrets are typically taken from their mothers at an early age, packed into crates, and trucked for days or flown hundreds of miles to dealers and then to pet stores, often without adequate food, water, or ventilation.

At the pet store they are put into cages with many other ferrets. They usually do not get a proper diet or enough space to move around. Ferrets that are not sold are either killed by the pet store and thrown in the trash, used by the pet store as live feed for snakes and reptiles, or sent back to the mill for a credit. If they are sent back to the mill, the mill will kill them and they will wind up as livestock feed. This is the fate of most of the small mammals that do not sell at pet stores.  

So what can we do? We can stop buying animals from pet stores and instead get pets from rescues and shelters. We can stop buying products that use animal testing. This will put these mills out of business. It is up to us, the consumer, to show these businesses that the lives of others matter, that animals are not the same as toasters.

While the vet could not do much for Twitch, we started him on Essiac tea and he is improving greatly. He is running around and playing again. Essiac tea may not cure his cancer, but it has greatly improved the quality of the days he has left. 

Please note, I am not a vet and am not giving medical advice.