Ferret Grooming
While you may see your ferret grooming itself, that doesn’t let you off the hook! There are a few things you need to do as a responsible ferret owner to keep your ferret looking, feeling and smelling good!
Bathing
While bathing should be part of your grooming routine, don’t overdo it! Ferrets that are bathed too often will actually have a stronger odor. Over-bathing strips the oils from your ferret’s fur and skin, drying it out.
This causes the skin to over-produce oils, which leaves you with a dry, itchy and decidedly stinky ferret! Bathing should only be done once a month at the most. It is alright if your ferret likes to splash around in the tub more often than that – just don’t use shampoo.
How often you should bathe your ferret? We recommend no more than once or twice a year.
Keep odors to a minimum by keeping the ferret’s environment clean: scoop litter daily, dump litter weekly, wash bedding weekly and clean the entire cage monthly (at the least).
Now for the actual bathing! There are many ferret specific shampoos out there, though if you’re all out and can’t find any, baby shampoo will do. Most shampoos manufactured for humans aren’t pH Balanced properly for a ferret, so you want to stick to ferret shampoo as much as possible.
Conditioners aren’t necessary, though they do help in preventing the skin from drying out, so you might want to use this in the winter.
A few tips to make bath time easier on your fuzzies!
Warm the towels in the dryer before bathing. Ferrets will enjoy drying themselves more on warm towels.
Make sure the water is the right temperature.
Ferrets have a normal body temperature of approximately 102 degrees, so what seems warm to you might seem cool to them.
Some ferrets like to be in a pool of water, others don’t.
Figure out which your ferret prefers and do that.
Warm the sink or the tub with warm water before putting your ferret in.
A cold surface is unpleasant for your ferret.
Rinse your ferret thoroughly – if shampoo remains on their skin, it will make your ferret itchy.
Cleaning Ears
Much of the odor that people attribute to ferrets is actually the odor of ferret ear wax, which is rather stinky!
You should clean your ferret’s ears at least once every two weeks, though once a week is best. Cleaning ears regularly prevents infections and ear mites.
The ear wax should be red, brown, or gold colored. Lots of black ear wax is a sign of ear mites. If you see this kind of ear wax, make a vet appointment as soon as possible. Left untreated, ear mites can cause deafness and even more serious problems.
To clean your ferret’s ears, first warm the solution a little bit. This isn’t necessary, but it will make the experience slightly less unpleasant for your ferret.
Scruff the ferret, and put a few drops of the cleaner into the ferret’s ear. This will help loosen the wax that is in there. Gently massage the base of the ferret’s ear to work the cleaner inside.
Then moisten a cotton swab with the ear cleaning solution and clean the outer ear and inside at the base of the ear. A ferret’s ear canal is shaped like an L, so as long as you don’t push hard, you won’t hurt it.
Continue using a moistened cotton swab until the wax is gone. Then use a dry swab to finish cleaning the ear out and dry it. Make sure to follow up ear cleaning with a yummy treat!
Continued on the Ferret Grooming Part 2
