Pilot consumer demand study with ferrets

Abstract

Ferrets are being used more often in scientific research. In order to maintain animal welfare, it is important to know what kind of housing and enrichment types ferrets prefer. In order to assess the preferred enrichment of ferrets, a closed economy set-up has been made with 2 chambers. Six adult female ferrets were used in the experiment. One of the two chambers represented the housing cage with a sleepingbox, food and water ad lib. The other chamber was designed to place the various enrichments. To assess the motivation of the ferrets, a weighted door between the two cages had to be pushed. First, the food was only placed in the enrichment cage to determine what the maximum pushing capacity (MPC) of all individual ferrets was. After determining the MPC of the ferrets, they had to push the weighted door for an empty cage to set a control value. Despite the ferrets having their sleepingbox, food and water in their housing cage, the ferrets did not push significantly more for food than for the empty cage. One of the six ferrets pushed more for the empty cage than when there was food in the cage. Another ferret pushed as much for the empty cage as for when the food was in the cage. To investigate the effect of the weighted door on the ferrets, a whole was made between the two cage, giving the ferrets free access from one cage to the other. Despite this free passage, five out of the six ferrets still pushed the weighted door, even if not as heavy as they did without the free passage. This pilot study shows more research has to be done on ferrets to determine what is the most effective set-up to make a preferential consumer demand study. This closed economy with a two-chamber set-up and a pushing task does not permit to evaluate preferences for enrichment for ferrets.