When I lived in California in the early 1990s I saw my first pet ferret. My husband and I were taking a hike with the kids when we ran into a man who‘d brought his two little ferrets out for some fresh air. Ferrets were illegal in California at that time, and he had them under wraps-very mysterious! I thought they were marvelous, and so did our children.

A ferret is a semi-tame polecat, supposedly brought to Europe originally by the Romans. From a study of skulls, its closest relative seems to be the Asian polecat. The name ferret is also used to describe a species native to North America, the now rare black footed ferret.

The ferret as a pet is just about the same size as the black-footed ferret but it weighs more. Most pet ferrets area about 5 pounds, the approximate size of the European polecat. My information talks about the ferret being the albino of the polecat, but that doesn’t totally make sense since quite a few ferrets are not albino. I’m hardly a ferret expert, so if anyone out there has additional information, let me know!
 
I did work hard to give my gold ferret earrings a suitably ferret-like pose. What a great little animal!

 

I also recommend a glance through the home page for small pet earrings done in gold - watch out for the little gold mouse earrings - sometimes they can surprise you.