Children & Ferrets: Safety Concerns

Video Transcript

"Hi there! My name is Fran Friendman and I am with Morning Store Animal Sanctuary and I am here to talk to you about ferrets and your children playing with ferrets with the toys on behalf of expertvillage.com. Ferrets love to play with toys and children love to play with toys too. Young children and ferrets are not usually a good match. You have to be very careful when a child is playing with a ferret. If your child has a squeaky toy and it tends to get a ferret agitated and they may become a little bit nippy or bitey and children have very sensitive skin and it’s just not a good idea. It is better that adult supervision is at all times. Here at Morning Store Animal Sanctuary we have a rule that we do not even adopt to households with children under 8. We have found that younger children just do not have the motor skills to play with ferrets. Ferrets are not toys for children. They can get hurt and squeeze them too hard and what usually happens is the ferret bites the child instead of the toy or gets scared and gets scared and places the child out of fear like any animal then its just not a good match. Make sure your child is playing with the ferret with the toy and even sometimes in an older child; make sure they wash their hands before they play with the ferret. If they’ve had lunch and they’ve had something that has a smell to it and did not wash their hands, the ferret will smell that, they have great noses and they might want to take a little taste, so don’t let that happen. Remember children should always be supervised. Children under 8 should not play with ferrets, even with ferret toys and make sure that everybody is supervised and safe and then they would all have a great time. "