"cotes," as they are commonly called. Care must always be
taken to have their places well swilled with carbolic water, and then
allowed to thoroughly dry before whitewashing the inside, which is also
essential to keep them healthy. This should be done at least four times
a year. Always have your hutches leaning from the wall, so that wet or
refuse will not lodge, for when the bottom of a hutch is always wet it is
liable to give the ferrets a disease called foot rot, which is very
frequent where ferrets are neglected. Always keep the feeding part of
the hutch well covered with sawdust.

In feeding ferrets for the purpose of Rat-catching, never do so before
going out with them; I think it is quite sufficient to feed them every 24
hours. If you feed them oftener they are liable to get too fat, and also
lazy and unwilling to work as they should. The best food you can give
them is bread and milk, and occasionally a little raw liver. Mix the
bread and milk with a little hot water, stir well with a spoon or squeeze
through your fingers, so that the ferrets will have to eat it where you
feed them; if not they will carry the large pieces of bread that are wet
into the corners of the sleeping place, which would soon cause that part
of the hutch to smell very sour and become injurious to the health of the
ferret, especially where four or five are kept together, as they are of a
very perspiring nature. Always give them plenty of room to run about
when you can; if you don't they are likely to take cramp.

Ferrets are usually subject to distemper. The first symptom is the
ferret's neglect of its food. When you see this you will observe a
little matter at the corner of the eyes, and the ferret will have a
slight running at the nostrils. Immediately you see these symptoms
separate that ferret from the others, as this is, I think, the worst
disease one has to contend with.

In the whole of my ferret-keeping experience I have found distemper, if
caught in time, can be cured; but if it gets too far I know of no cure
for it. I have known a gamekeeper to have dogs with the distemper, and
he has not touched his ferrets or handled them at all during the time his
dogs were bad, yet a week afterwards his ferrets caught the disease. He
tried all the remedies he knew of, but in 14 days 12 hitherto good,
strong, healthy ferrets died: all he had. This will show at once that
the disease is very contagious. The moment you see signs o