Ferrets &
Cats
Dear FerretLady:
I belong to a large mailing list of cat lovers. One of our members is
doing foster work with cats and is asking about cats and ferrets
living together. A potential adoptive home is available but the young
boy in the home has a pet ferret. My friend is asking whether anyone knows if cats and ferrets can live together in peace. I have heard
that they can and do, but I am not a ferret person. Can you enlighten us on the
subject?
Faye
Dear Faye:
Ferrets and cats make great companions! I know
people who have ferrets and dogs that play together, but I tell them to be
careful and watch them at all times -- a big dog could harm a ferret without
meaning to.
However, when you mix ferrets and cats, you will find they
become fast friends. If one of them is going to get the upper hand, it
will almost always be the ferret! When ferrets play with each other, they are
very rough, and they seem to think that a cat is just a big ferret. So
usually, the cat has to run away at some point! My cats and ferrets play
together all the time, but the cats are really happy to be able to jump up onto
tables and desks to get away from the ferrets when the ferrets get to be too much!
Note that a cat-ferret mix is fine if both the ferrets and
cats are adults. Even though the ferret is usually the winner in a
friendly cat-ferret tussle, generally it's not a good idea to mix baby ferrets with adult cats or
kittens with adult ferrets. There are exceptions to this -- one of my cats
(at one year of age) fell in love with one of my baby ferrets (nine weeks of
age) and they became almost inseparable from the first day I brought the ferret
home from the pet store. However, I still supervised their playtime to make sure they didn't get too rough with
one another. The cat didn't always know it was hurting the baby ferret, so
I made sure their playtime was brief until the ferret got older and bigger.
Introduce your cats and ferrets to each other gradually
and closely supervise their playtime. You might want to give your ferret a bath
before introducing him or her to your cat. Cats have an exceptional sense
of smell and if you bought your ferret at a pet store, the ferret probably brought home
the odor of all sorts of animals with it -- mice, hamsters, possibly even other
cats. Bathe the ferret in very warm (not hot) water and mild shampoo such
as baby shampoo. Rinse with very warm water. Dry the ferret off
thoroughly with a towel and wait until its coat dries before introducing it to
the cat.
When your cats and ferrets are fully grown (cats at one
year of age, ferrets at six months), then they should be able to play together
more easily without doing one another serious harm. It really depends on
the personalities of both.
And always -- ALWAYS -- keep an eye on your pets when
they play together if you are mixing species at playtime so that you can
intervene if things get too rough. Better safe than sorry.
Have fun!
The FerretLady
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to The FerretLady at
FerretLady@FerretCity.com.
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