Animal breeding / by A.L. Hagedoorn.

  • Hagedoorn, Arend L. (Arend Lourens), 1880-1953.
Date:
[1939]
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

Credit: Animal breeding / by A.L. Hagedoorn. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    347/410 (page 305)
    Breeding of Special Groups of Animals — II 305 whitish underfur, not orange-yellow. They are generally much more long and slender. Their disposition is different; they are much slower in all their movements than even the tamest of tamed fitches, they are not easily frightened, and do not use their anal glands. A curious difference which makes the ferret adapted to breeding in captivity is the striking swelling of the vulva in the females in heat. This quality makes it possible to breed ferrets even when each owner has only one or two animals, as this sign of breeding condition cannot be overlooked. The ferret thrives on a diet of bread and milk with a very small piece of meat occasionally, and on this same diet a fitch rapidly starves. It is hardly believable that anybody would ever dream, of taming the fitch to take it rabbiting; to anyone who has ever kept tame fitches this sounds like going hunting with a pet tiger! Even the tamest fitch is extremely quick and snappy ; it is certainly not to be trusted loose. It is probable that the first animal to be tamed and used for ferreting has been the related Siberian fitch, which differs very much from the European one in disposition, colour and shape. Never having bred these animals myself, I do not know whether the food requirements differ from those of the black fitch, though this is not probable. As far as I know, no attempt has ever been made to hybridize the two species, but it would be extremely interesting to try this, to find out whether selection in the second and third generations would produce tame or ferret-coloured individuals. I have succeeded in inducing both the stone marten and the ermine to copulate with female ferrets, but without results. It is probable that the so-called stoat-ferrets, suitable for ratting, are simply small young females, possibly of specially selected small strains. Ferrets vary enormously in every respect. I have had baby ferrets (in hybridized lots) that opened the eyes as early as at three weeks of age, instead of the usual five. The babies often varied much in the size of the tough patch of skin that is vulcanized into the spot by which the mother grasps it in carrying. The length of the tail is very variable in some famiHes. By hybridizing ferret and European fitch beautiful first-genera¬ tion hybrids are produced, having food requirements somewhat less strict than in the wild species, and very valuable pelts. These