Breeding ferrets

[millytheterrier 12]

This will be my first time at breeding ferrets.. From what ive been reading and hearing, if you dont breed a ferret jill whats in season, she can die or get really ill. Im putting a pair together hob & jill. lets say hob is fertile and jill gets pregnant and has kits, would she need to be bred again at a later date when she comes back into season or would she be okay or would i need some sorta jap from vets. also if the hob was albino (red eyes) and a silver jill what colour offspring will they be?

 

thanks.

MTT

[hare hunter 8]

The kits will turn out mixed yoou can never tell

 

 

[Kay 3,709]

  On 29/08/2011 at 10:20, millytheterrier said:

This will be my first time at breeding ferrets.. From what ive been reading and hearing, if you dont breed a ferret jill whats in season, she can die or get really ill. Im putting a pair together hob & jill. lets say hob is fertile and jill gets pregnant and has kits, would she need to be bred again at a later date when she comes back into season or would she be okay or would i need some sorta jap from vets. also if the hob was albino (red eyes) and a silver jill what colour offspring will they be?

 

thanks.

MTT

 

 

I dont think you will get a chance at breeding this year now , most ferrets are already on the way out of season , to be honest i would just buy in ferrets rather than breed, the jill does need bringing out of season purely because of the risk of infection

 

Jill jabs might be a problem for people next year as the stuff they jab with has to be binned after its been opened so unless you have a couple of 100 ferrets all wanting jabbing at the same time then its likely they will charge you for the whole bottle & at £ a throw thats clearly going to be out of the equation for a lot

 

I seriously wouldnt breed unless you have a whole host of people wanting the kits

[ferretguy12345 4]

I agree, it is very unlikely she will breed at this time of year, even if shes been in season for the whole term, she will still come out of season, but as you have read there are huge risks involved in doing this. If you did breed them you could actually tell what colours you were going to throw if you new what colour the parents of the two you have were. As the ferret carries just like all living creatures a phenotype and a genotype, phenotype is the physical appearance and genotype is its genetic make-up this is hidden, but you can tell by the parents, for example if your albinos parents were both albino then your jill will carry 100 percent albino gene, and if your silver hobs parents were both silver he would carry 100 percent silver gene, so if you breed them you would throw half and half most likely, but dont be surprised if you threw a poley or two as all ferrets derive from this gene and all colours are recessive to this most dominant one. But this is only an example.

[Jamie m 668]

  On 29/08/2011 at 10:20, millytheterrier said:

This will be my first time at breeding ferrets.. From what ive been reading and hearing, if you dont breed a ferret jill whats in season, she can die or get really ill. Im putting a pair together hob & jill. lets say hob is fertile and jill gets pregnant and has kits, would she need to be bred again at a later date when she comes back into season or would she be okay or would i need some sorta jap from vets. also if the hob was albino (red eyes) and a silver jill what colour offspring will they be?

 

thanks.

MTT

What are your reasons for breeding ????

[ferretguy12345 4]

I think thats a good question, really breeding is pretty much wrong, unless its for creating a new strain or working line. Breeding should only be considered to improve the animal in some way, as there are plenty of homeless ferrets due to already unknowledgeable owners who dont understand the true concept of having a ferret.

[fcuktheban 140]

I bred once and I'll never do it again. I did it to get a kit from my best worker. There's no money in it, it's a lot of work and you might be stuck with a bunch of hungry ferrets eating your wallet dry.

[ferretguy12345 4]

Yes you can be left with a lot of unwanted kits, they can have litters of up to fifteen kits, and ususally you would lose one or two but it is very hard work. Cleaning out and handling them to keep them tame, its very time consuming, then there is the rehoming situation, i have seen people struggle to rehome a free ferret.

[The one 8,522]

I think you should do your research before you think about breeding them as there's a lot involved in it ,And you dont need to breed them just because there in season but really all this should have been thought out before you got ferrets

[millytheterrier 12]

Thanks for the replys.