2o6 Practical Game Preserving. 



given in smaller quantities : milk and beef tea alternately or 

 together, or the former with a hen's egg beaten up in it. 

 When -the ferrets commence to regain strength and improve 

 in health, a little flour and very finely-chopped suet may be 

 followed with some milk, and then a return to bread and 

 milk and small additions of animal food. 



Invariably we have found a small barrel the best hospital 

 for sick ferrets ; but if this cannot be had, then nice clean, 

 fresh hutches must be used. We have always found the bath 

 of warm soap and water with the Condy's Fluid as efficacious 

 against distemper as any other remedy. 



Foot-rot is the most debilitating disorder from which 

 ferrets suffer, but is in every way preventible if only the 

 common rules which guide the management of ferrets be 

 regarded. It may result from three causes, the chief and 

 most fruitful of which is the habit of putting ferrets away 

 after a hard day's work without cleaning their feet and 

 tails. Particularly in wet weather, but also at any other 

 time, after a few hours' work the claws and toes of the 

 animals become matted with " fleck " and dirt, while the 

 ulterior portion of the tail, from continually dragging on 

 the moist, sometimes clammy soil within the burrows, 

 becomes coated with earth. When the ferrets are returned 

 into hutch in the evening, it is necessary to remove these 

 accumulations of dirt, even by washing if necessary, as the 

 parts to which dirt may have clung are generally so matted 

 with the obnoxious substances, that the animal, though nice 

 as to cleanliness, quite fails to remove them. 



The second cause of foot -rot is the same that aggravates 

 sweat into distemper, and is the cause of scab, viz., dirty 



