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Friday, February 12, 2010

Creating a Ferret Room - What and Why?

What is a ferret room?
A ferret room is a ferret-safe space devoted entirely to your pet ferrets. Ferret rooms often contain the ferret's cage as well as several ferret-safe toys and beds. The purpose of a ferret room is not to act as a substitute for human attention or play, nor is it meant to be a place to confine your animal 24/7. A ferret room is meant to provide your ferret with totally safe play area that the ferret can run around in unsupervised while you are at school, work, meetings, out with friends etc.

What are the advantages of having a ferret room?
So you already have a nice, big cage, why bother with a ferret room? Well, ferret rooms have certain advantages.

First and foremost, ferret rooms enable your furry friends to run around and burn off some of their excess energy while you are away. This tends to lead to slightly less hyper ferrets when you come home. Once or twice, after introducing a brand new dig box or similarly exiting new toy, I went to let my ferrets out of their room only to find them too exhausted from playing to come out!

Secondly, ferret rooms lend themselves well to situations in which you must have two playtimes. With a ferret room, alternating play times is much simpler. When you are home, ferret group A gets to be out of the ferret room while group B gets the run of the house. After a few hours, you switch - this way both ferret groups are able to have more run time.

Ferret rooms are much easier to rearrange and more mentally stimulating to your ferrets - simply adding a few boxes and moving a few tunnels stimulates your ferrets and provides enrichment.

Finally, ferret rooms are great for owners who feel guilty about having to leave their fuzzies to go to work. It is much easier to leave if you know that they will be playing and running while you are out rather than sitting in their cages watching the minutes tick by until your return.