FERRETS AND RABBITS. 393 



or has died of some disease such as rotten 

 liver or squashed belly. All animals that 

 have died from disease are unfit for food 

 for ferrets. 



Ferrets soon go wrong if fed on unhealthy 

 food for a long time ; it does not matter what 

 you give them to eat if it is only healthy food. 

 A fowl, a cat, hedgehog, squirrel, rabbit, rat, 

 or anything else will do, provided it is fresh 

 and free from disease. The ferret hutch 

 should be kept very clean, and should, on no 

 account, be made with a wooden bottom, if it 

 has a wooden bottom it very soon gets im- 

 pregnated with the animal's excrements, and 

 so sodden that no amount of cleaning and 

 whitewashing will do it any good. A hutch in 

 this state soon generates diseases, such as 

 foot rot, distemper, and so on, and thus the 

 keeper soon loses all his ferrets, and has no 

 one but himself to thank for his loss. The 

 hutch should be made with an iron-wire bottom, 

 the wires being placed half-an-inch apart, so 

 that the ferrets will, to a great extent, keep 

 themselves clean. 



