One of the most important aspects or characteristics of odors is their smell. This odor comes from its glands that it has throughout the body and that produces a characteristic unpleasant smell substance.
The objective of that smell, is not other than to identify each other, and thanks to that smell, they can distinguish themselves and know who is who when they live in a group.
It is usually said that the cause of the bad smell is the anal glands and that if it is operated the odor problem is solved. But this is not true, they are NOT the cause of the bad smell.
The characteristic smell of ferrets comes from a series of glands that are distributed throughout your body and that produce an oily substance with an unpleasant odor. The purpose of this substance is none other than to identify each ferret with his personal brand. Although it may seem to us that all ferrets smell the same, this is not the case. Each ferret has its characteristic smell that other ferrets can distinguish.
This fragrant brand is a signature with which the ferret points out which is its territory to other ferrets.
Unlike other animal species, the glands that cause this unpleasant odor are not perianal, located at the base of the tail, but are distributed throughout the body surface at the subcutaneous level.
How can i avoid the smell of ferrets?
The answer is in no way. There are ways to reduce the odor of ferrets, but you can never make it disappear completely, the only option is to make this smell as less intense as possible. There are several ways to reduce the smell intensity of ferrets, which must be used together to achieve maximum reduction
Clean your cage
Each day, wipe the surface of the cage with a cloth, to eliminate the body odor of the floor ferret and the floors. It is advisable to clean the cage daily, or every 2 days, at the most.
And every 5 days or once a week at the most, do a thorough cleaning of the cage cleaning all the floors, toboggans and toys that our ferret can have inside the cage. Almost always he usually smells more the own cage than the ferret, so it is important to keep it always clean. If we keep the ferret’s cage clean, we will reduce the smell a lot.
Have your toilet clean
We have to remove the feces of our ferret every day. It is even recommended twice a day. You can do it by getting up in the morning and last hour of the day.
This is something that is done relatively quickly and we eliminate the first odor focus from the cage.
Clean the ears of our ferret
The ears of our ferret can also smell a little when they have a little accumulated wax. The cleaning of the ears should be done every 15 days at the most, being recommended every week in ferrets that produces a lot of wax.
The cleaning of the ears
It is very important, not only because of the smell, but because if we let our ferret accumulate the wax in their ears, it could suffer some infection in the ears.
There are other aspects that also tend to influence the smell, such as heat. The whole males and females (not castrated), when they enter the heat, give off a greater smell than during the rest of the year. This smell is much greater in males during heat.
Also consider bathing your ferret.