hi,
just asking on behalf of my girlfriend,

We are new to ferret keeping and just wondering if siblings can be bred together, i know it seems like a stupid question but we will be getting two 10week olds that we have rescued.

Will we need to get the neutered or can they breed?

Breeding is not a problem but if it is when they are related then they will be neutered.

John & Amy.

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alot of beeders use inbreeding and line breeding.
to the world of ferrets

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1.2.0 boas
0.1.0 crsted gecko
2.2 ferrets
0.0.1 yellow belled slider
0.0.1 ornate horned frog
1.1.0 emerald mantids
1.0 whippet

thank you. so the babies wont be deformed or nothing.
cheers
Amy.

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Females need to be kept very carefully though and i URGE you to read up on female ferret seasons!!

Marina

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Hold on to your hopes and dreams
Hold on to who you are
Give in
Take the journey.

Thanks for the advice,
We have another 3 weeks before we get them so a lot more reading will be done beforehand.

John

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Are you gonna be keeping indoors or out??

Marina

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Hold on to your hopes and dreams
Hold on to who you are
Give in
Take the journey.

They will be kept outdoors.

John

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probably wise if your breeding but you'll miss out so much of the babies because you wont see them till they leave the nest if they live out.

Marina

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Hold on to your hopes and dreams
Hold on to who you are
Give in
Take the journey.

mine all live out in the garage.. most of the females are new to me, having only come in spring this year..

they are all happy for me to take them out, have a good look at the babies, and then put them back in, without showing any agression to me or the young..

i do take the precaution, the first time i do it, which is, incidently, within the first week, or rubbing my hands in their urine soaked litter first.. which is a manky business, but does ensure i smell of them..

i check with the first week / few days, to make sure they are being fed properly and so on..

as with most animals, there are no hard and fast "rules", much of it, is common sense and observation.. if your ferrets know you, and recognise there is no threat to the kits, then they do not mind you having a look.. if they feel threatened, then i would think it could be a different story.

as to sibling breeding.. no, the likelihood is you will not see any problems in the resulting babies.. although i have heard to not breed silver onto silver as it can result in problem kits..

hth

Nerys

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I would imagine if the rescue you are getting them from is an established rescue then they will ask for you to return the ferret to their vet for neutering when it comes of age, this is indeed what a few rescues I know of actually do as obviously rescues disagree with breeding.

I personally wouldn't breed brother to sister I just don't like the idea, father to daughter is more acceptable or son to mother but again I would prefer two use totally unrelated animals in a breeding project.

I am not against breeding but I would really ask you to read up on it and take into consideration if you can rehome a large litter of kits before you mate them, I am not suggesting you are an idiot or anything like that but some people (myself included when I used to breed rats) get carried away with the idea of cute fluffy babies but once they are into the nipping and naughty stage they aren't always easy to sell on.

I can give you lots more info on ferrets if you need and I really could go on about them all day as they are fantastic pets but I will leave it with the answer to your question and you can ask me if you'd like me to ramble on a bit more

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rep's, fluffie's, bird's, dowgies