Is it ok to reintroduce the male to the females during the winter. Or should I get another male as he seems to be lonely all on his own. Will the two males fight, and should I separate the males during breeding time?
I have 3 Jill ferrets and one Hob. The hob has been separated from the females during the breeding season.?
May 2, 2010 3 Comments
Hi there.
I take it from the info that all your ferrets are entire? i.e. not neutered?
If so your best bet is to neuter all the ferrets, then they can all live together as a group all year round.
Entire males can be put back with the females when he is out of season in the winter but he will then have to be separated from them during the spring and summer which by the sounds of it is making him lonely. You are far better off getting him neutered and waiting 3-4 weeks before placing him back with the jills, then he can live with them all year round very happily.
The jills will have to be neutered for health benefits anyway. Jills come into season the first spring after their birth and will not be brought out of season without either being mated or given a hormone injection commonly known as the jill jab. Repeat injections of this every year aren’t advised and are also very costly compared to the one off charge of neutering. As you have an entire hob there is also the risk of pregnancy if you don’t separate him before the jills come into season.
I wouldn’t advise getting another hob to go with your existing one either. If they are both entire they will fight when they are in season. Even if one is neutered as soon as the entire hob comes into season it will fight with the other hob and try to mate with him.
So my advice all round is to neuter all of your existing ferrets, they can then live happily together all year round.
There are a couple of options for neutering them. Either the usual surgical spaying (for females) or castration (for males.) Or fairly new on the market is an implant which chemically neuters the ferrets; they keep all their reproductive organs but act behaviorally as a neutered ferret meaning they can all live together without the risk of fighting, pregnancy or coming into season. The implant is inserted just like a microchip underneath the skin and can last between 18months-2yrs after which it has to be replaced. However there isn’t much research into the prolonged used of the implant to chemically castrate.
You are better off speaking to your vet about the best option.
For better info visit ferretsforum- you can look and the FAQ’s and search on the Talk Ferrets; they are all a very helpful and friendly bunch!
http://www.ferretsforum.co.uk
ETA- Alaskan Ferret. You seem to be misguided. I take it you live in the USA? YES out there adrenal disease is more prevalent because you neuter at 8 weeks which yes is WAAAY too early. There is a strong link between early neutering and an increase of adrenal disease. BUT do not go around giving false advice!! By vasectomizing the hob YES he can bring the females out of season HOWEVER he will still behave like an intact hob i.e. not be able to be kept with the Jills all year round as he will try and mate with them 24/7! Ferret breeding is not a nice thing. Not to mention that he may have to be used more than once on each jill during the breeding season as they can come back in again before the season has finished. Plus using a vasectomized hob repeatedly on a jill has been shown to increase the risk of uterine infections and he may send the jill into false pregnancy which again repeat false pregnancies can be harmful to a jill! Not to mention there is always the chance of a vasectomy reversing (which can and does happen!) meaning that the poster will end up with possibly 3 litters of kits.
In the UK we advise neutering as late as possible. AT LEAST 6 months of age or around Jan/Feb time before they come into season.
So yes EARLY neutering can increase adrenal disease BUT it doesn’t mean ferrets shouldn’t be neutered!
I agree with you on the idea that neutering does increase the risk of adrenal disease. However I personally still believe that there are far more benefits to neutering and this is why in the UK we neuter as late as possible.
As I said above there are now more options on chemical neutering with deslorelin rather than surgical neutering. I myself plan on getting my hob kits implanted in Jan/Feb time to neuter them this way.
You are wrong on one count though. A hob in season WILL try to mate with jills regardless of whether they are in season or not. Their hormones mean they can’t distinguish between a female/ male in season or not. So by vasectomising the hob he would have to be kept separate from the jills and other ferrets during the breeding season. Which as I remember the original poster was worried about him being lonely on his own. Although there is the risk of neutering them increasing their risk of adrenal disease I believe that all ferrets would be far happier being able to be left together all year round as one group.
And false pregnancies can be harmful to a jill. In many species repeat false pregnancies can be shown to be harmful. Not to mention the stress to the jill also. One of my jills was in season when I rescued her and so had to have the jill jab which sent her into a false pregnancy. I would never want to put her through it again.
I totally agree that there are many differing opinions and I think it is a really interesting topic of discussion; but I personally believe that there are still far more benefits to neutering (either surgically or chemically.) And as you said there are far more factors other than neutering that effect a ferrets risk of developing adrenal disease.
I think we have to agree to disagree on this one. Otherwise we’ll end up taking over the original posters question. But just to make you aware. I was talking about the deslorelin implant- not monthly shots or delvosterone- which is the hormone injection used to bring a jill out of season. This implant is inserted like a microchip and works as a GnRH agonist hence the term chemical castration.
If you are interested google for the work of Dr Nico Shoemaker in the Netherlands. He has been studying the use of deslorelin to chemically castrate hobs for several years.
By having unspayed female ferrets you are risking them dying from aplastic anaemia, infections and other complications. The best thing would be to neuter all your ferrets, as the other poster said. If you dont want the cost of spaying/neutering all 4 at once, you could do one now, one at the beginning of next year, and then use jill jabs on your remaining jills until you have them all spayed.
I DON’T agree with either answer you have gotten so far.
80% of spayed/neutered ferrets will get adrenal cancer, so I think you’re fine keeping them unaltered. It would be best to get the male vasectomied if you don’t want kits, then you have something to bring the girls out of season.
Two Hob males will not want to be friends, they will want to fight. Keeping them together all the time is better than separating them for a month here and there, they forget their friends. If you can get them to be friends they should like the company. Otherwise you will have to keep them separated.
The females can be around the male when she is not in season, they should always get along fine. If you are keeping them indoors (around artificial light) its possible the light will bring her in season at anytime, then you would have kits to deal with, so be careful. Also, if the artificial light brings them into season it might not bring the male into season, so you would have to visit the vet to get her out of season.
–first response to ryou-oh–
The evidence suggests (has not been proven either way) that regardless of age, a neutered/spayed ferret WILL develop adrenal cancer.
Even after the sex hormones have formed.
In ferrets the gonads are part of a continuous feedback system involving the brain, pituitary glands and gonads (ovaries and testes).
System: The hypothalamus releases GnRH which causes the pituitary gland to release LH which causes the testis or ovary to release estrogen or testosterone.
So we remove the gonads, what happens? We have lots of GnRH (because there’s no estrogen or testosterone to stop the loop) being pumped into the system to get everything up and running again, paired with lots of LH being release which builds up in the blood stream.
Adrenal Glands: High levels of LH can let the adrenal glands produce estrogen and testosterone, but it takes lots of LH and is not what the adrenal glands are made to do, so they in turn cause malignant tumors.
You’re right, there are many reasons to spay a female. But he only has one male, why neuter when you can let them co-habitate when not in season (or when one is in season and the others are not)? Also, there is nothing dangerous about a female in a false pregnancy. She needs extra care but there’s nothing unhealthy about it- in fact I think it is healthier because you’re not altering her body so much that cancer is the result. A Hob will not try to mate with a female who is not in season.
There are probably less amounts of adrenal cancer in the Europe because of the habit of having outdoor enclosures for ferrets (as they are very susceptible to light which can bring a ferret into season at any time of year and multiple times). The trend to house indoors is most likely the cause of the increase of adrenal in that region.
Lupron or Deslorelin are drugs currently being used that try to counteract this over release of LH. This is not a cure it is a treatment for a disease.
–second response–
Ryou-oh I think we have come to a partial agreement: “chemical castration” or the use of Deslorelin or Lupron to bring a hob out of season is the best option. (of course we still don’t know if there are any other repercussions to this. There could be bone loss, among other things)
If you’re in the US you will have to go with Lupron, Deslorelin (which lasts longer and is currently your best bet) is not widely available here yet. Lupron comes in different doses and can be mail ordered and administered by anyone- check with vet on doses and how to use.
As for the Jill, its a personal choice. I would go with Lupron/Deslorelin/Jill Jab but there are pro’s and con’s to each choice (what if your ferret gets out, someone else takes her in and doesn’t know how to deal with a ferret in season).
Still disagree on:
I do have issue with the following argument you make: “In many species repeat false pregnancies can be shown to be harmful.” Well in many species neutering/spaying does not cause cancers, so I don’t find this argument persuasive.
Also, one thing you wrote: “as you said there are far more factors other than neutering that effect a ferrets risk of developing adrenal disease.” NO I didn’t mention anything other than neutering/spaying as a cause of adrenal cancer which is one reason I don’t think the term chemical castration/neutering is appropriate, it is somewhat misleading- those shots trick the ferret into thinking its winter (gets them out of season) thus stopping the body from overloading with sex hormones (which cause the adrenal cancer). Its the difference between birth control and castration.