Ferret heaven

Genuinely excited to learn that David Traynier may be moving in with ferrets. A photo of one of the putative housemates, an albino called Yellow, confirms the curiosity and mischief of this subspecies, the only domesticated mustelid.

I think I've bored on the topics of ferrets before, and reserve my rights to do so again. One of the very few obligate carnivores in the history of domestification apart from cats, and thus expensive to feed. Unaltered females (jills) die if not mated when in season, making them difficult to breed and prone to inbreeding, as owners have to manage their breeding peculiarity by restricting the number of breeding jills. Furthermore, unaltered hobs reek (an acquired taste), despite their adorable personalities.

Ferrets are a banned animal in California, as well as some other US states. This does not prevent an underground railroad of owners and vets. Its just as well that some vets will help underground owners, since a majority of US ferrets come from a central breeding house in whom a substantial proportion of the product develops metabolic disease, adrenal cancers or leukaemias. Two of the four ferrets owned by a Californian acquaintance have developed such diseases.