Mammals Ferrets 
quarters, and knew she had young ones. The ferret 
book says the mother will kill the young ones if you 
look at them before she brings them out herself, but 
after awhile I could not wait any longer and peeked 
through a crack in the partition. There were eight 
young ones, seven like Jack and Jill, (the brown 
ferrets are called polecat ferrets), and one pure white. 
When they were about four weeks old, Jill began to 
carry in bread for them. She would line them up 
and give each one a piece, and when she thought 
they had eaten enough, she took it away and put 
them back in the nest. Often they wanted more 
bread, or wanted to run around a while, but she 
made them mind. She carried them by the back 
of the neck, and if they cried, she cuffed them. 
After they began to come out for their own food she 
was still busier, for she kept strict watch, and made 
them stop eating when she thought they had enough. 
When they outgrew the hutch, we moved them to the 
kitchen of an empty cottage, and gave them an 
empty cracker box to sleep in. 
The young ones grew very fast, and were as big 
as their mother in three months, and even larger by 
fall. They were most interesting to watch while we 
had them in this kitchen. There was a pantry in one 
corner with good hiding places in it, and the young 
ones always wanted to take their food in there, 
while Jill wanted the food in the sleeping box. They 
were trained from the first on rats and made short 
work of the ones we gave them; they would sink 
their teeth in a rat and try to get it in the pantry, but 
Jill would haul the whole lot of them into the cracker 
box, just by will power, for they were eight to one. 
If one of the young ones got more than his share, 
Jill would hunt him up, and then come back and 
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