Why do you put up with the smell from ferrets?

FERRETS
Neil McIntosh
Having broken my nose once too often, it really doesn?t bother me but I have seen plenty of pet owners slide away from a ferret box in the waiting room with their scarves over their faces.

The culprit, of course, is the ferret?s anal glands, which produce a particularly pungent odour, which some find quite nauseating.

It is legal in your country of birth to have these glands surgically removed but this procedure (quite rightly, in my opinion) is viewed as an unnecessary mutilation in the UK and so is not permissible here.

Incidentally, it is an operation that I have to do quite often in dogs because of infected or impacted glands but here they are being removed on medical grounds and not just because of your sensitive olfactory system.

About the author

Neil McIntosh

A practising veterinary surgeon for 38 years and, until recently, a partner in an 18-vet Scottish practice covering everything from farm and equine work to police and working dogs, Neil has provided the veterinary content for Sporting Gun since 2010 and answers readers' questions on the panel. He has written a weekly pet page for the Daily Record for more than 21 years and also writes for the Greenock Telegraph and the Largs and Millport News. On the shooting side he is a keen beater, picker-up and Shot, and it matters to him that he eats what he shoots. His subjects range from hip dysplasia, worming and itchy Labradors to why doping to win field trials never works, and why he believes the law on tail docking needs to change.

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