Does anyone here keep ferrets? I have a question about winter insulating?

Can you bring them into your home or basement at all?

How cold does it get during your winters? Here in Wis I’d need a shed or hen house type structure to thoroughly keep them warm enough. (Personally if I had any they’d be indoors)

If you have electric to the hutch then install a ceramic heater. It looks like a lightbulb but emits no light. Hang the bulb, and metal shade, from the ceiling of the hutch, making sure your ferrets can’t get to it.

Get tarps and tack them up to the sides and front to keep drafts down. Keep an opening at the bottom for air circulation.

For more info look at how to winterize a rabbit hutch as you’ll have several of the needs in common.

If you don’t want to buy a hutch cover, you could probably make a half decent one with some nice fabric that will keep the heat inside the cage. Make sure they have fluffy warm beds (like those hanging sack things that seem to be a standard ferret accessory) so they can cuddle up and keep warm.

The best thing I could think of though would definitely be to bring them inside… They are smelly creatures, but if you have a room that you don’t go into TOO much that could make a good winter dwelling for your ferrets.

Small critters like ferrets are not as good at regulating body temperature because of their small mass but large surface area. Do your best to make sure they don’t get too cold in the winter. I hate to see animals suffer out in the cold!

I should really have clarified before people got onto ‘bring them indoors’, if they could be indoors they would be. We are living at a temporary address sharing a house and it’s only by the good grace of our housemate that the ferrets are allowed in the garden. They don’t get a very good reception wherever we go, in fact we are in transit because our last landlord kicked us out for having them inside in the first place. So, back on track -

@gemiwing yeah we have tarps up already to keep the rain off because the hutches don’t seem to have been that well treated by the manufacturor, they work well enough but I don’t want to take any risks. I will look into the ceramic heater idea, I have used them for lizards before and never had a problem but I’d have to do a little reaserch on how safe they are when combined with ferrets, being the inquisitive and destructive little monsters they are!

@ParaParaYukiko it’s not that I don’t want to buy a hutch cover, but all the ones I’ve seen really don’t seem any good.. They have a whole bunch of blankets and general cuddly stuff so thats not a proplem, but yeah I will probably go about making some insulation. Bubble wrap has been suggested elsewhere, so I am gonna trawl round and find some functional ideas. I will give it to the men to make, they like a project =)

I really couldn’t say how cold it gets as I have just moved here, apparently the winters are quite harsh, but ferrets are kept outside in much colder climes so I guess I’ll just wing it and see what I can come up with. The heat of summer was alot more dangerous than the cold of winter for them and we managed that. Thanks for your input