Each year, we write a post to summarize the major developments of our business.  Since we opened in 2016, each year has been a year of growth and development.  Like many new small businesses, it was exciting to see how we out performed our previous year as our business grew.  In the beginning of this year, there was no reason not to expect this year to be any different.  We had more bookings in January and February than we had in the previous year for those same months.  By early March, we had over $17,000 in summer bookings on our schedule.  It was looking like another great year.  Until everything changed.

At first, we were hopeful that the pandemic would only last through March or April.  It would be easy to bounce back with our lucrative summer season.  We received an EIDL grant and a grant from the State of Maryland which helped keep us afloat.  As a small business that is heavily run by the owner of the business and supported by part time employees, we would not meet the requirements for the PPP loan as payroll is less than half of our monthly expenses.  As it became obvious that the pandemic would be more enduring, we started offering virtual programs and created a gofundme which raised $1,800 to assist with our animal care expenses.

We had the worst performing summer in our history, including our first summer in business.  Many of our expenses remained the same with rent, food for the animals, veterinary care, insurance, and other overhead.  When we received our Economic Injury and Disaster Loan in July, the majority of the loan went to refunds for summer programs that had canceled.  Fortunately, we were able to give refunds or provide credit to all of our clients. 

By mid-summer, I (Alex, owner of Ferrets and Friends) had to make some difficult decisions.  When the pandemic started, I had a part time job working in a hospital ER as a social worker and devoted most of my time to the business.  I was receiving about 30% of my normal income to cover all of my expenses and I was not able to receive pandemic unemployment benefits due to earning more than the threshold of $178 per week.  With my May wedding canceled and future plans put on hold, I was able to use my savings to keep my family and the business afloat for the first six months of the pandemic, but my savings would run dry by the end of September.  I knew I would have to create a more sustainable situation.  I needed to get a full time job and reduce expenses. 

I made the tough decision to re-home one third of the animals and furlough four out of our six employees.  Fortunately all of our staff have other full times jobs or sources of income.  At the start of 2020, we had over 40 animals in our program.  By the end of the year, that number had dropped to 24.  Some of the homes we found were other animal ambassador programs.  Other homes enabled our animal friends to retire from the working life and to enjoy being pampered family pets.  Our re-homed animals included our youngest two ferrets, both of our rabbits, four of our snakes, three of our lizards, and one tarantula.  None of our parrots were re-homed.  With the re-homing complete, I was able to start a new full time job in my social work career.  I now work as part of a mobile crisis team paired with a police officer responding to calls that involve suicide, psychosis, substance abuse, mental health crisis, or grief and sudden death.  It's a big change from bringing the joy of animals to kids, but it is equally rewarding.  Although I look forward to returning to our regular programs whenever that becomes possible.

But the pandemic wasn't the only thing that happened this year.  We also started a new partnership with The Drawing Zoo and became certified as an LGBT Business Enterprise (meaning that we are owned by an LGBT individual).  As a queer nonbinary person who also has multiple disabilities, being a small business owner enabled to me to have lifestyle that I didn't think was possible.  I have Meniere's disease which is a disorder of the inner ear which can cause unexpected bouts of vertigo and long term hearing loss.  I wear a hearing aide to help with my hearing loss, but there is little that helps manage the vertigo.  Fortunately, my new job is accommodating and flexible.  Anyone with a disability can tell you how rare it is to find a workplace like mine.  If there was no pandemic, I probably wouldn't have taken the risk in trying to find such employment.  But I am grateful for this new opportunity.

For those of you who keep track of us, you may remember that our neighboring booth at the World of Pets Expo in 2019 was The Drawing Zoo.  The Drawing Zoo has their own collection of animal friends who have a very special job helping teach art lessons.  Each concept of art is paired with an animal to help young artists practice their new skills.  This might include snakes to learn about patterns, chameleons to learn about color, or bunnies to learn about texture.  Throughout 2019, we worked with The Drawing Zoo by trading animals to allow more diversity in each of our programs.  Early this year, we started training our staff to be able to use our own animal ambassadors as part of lessons for The Drawing Zoo so that they would be able to hire us for some of their contracts.

This year was off to a great start!  Domino assisted a lesson on color and the ferrets helped Alex during her first solo lesson.  Unfortunately, with school closures, the art lessons have been put on hold.  We look forward to resuming our partnership when schools reopen.

We returned to the World of Pets Expo this year as part of our volunteer pet therapy team with Pets on Wheels.  Jubilee said hello to guests on Friday evening, while the ferret team demonstrated their therapy skills on Sunday. Our ferret brothers, Pabu and Abu, especially enjoyed meeting their colleagues: therapy dogs.  This was also Rory's first event since passing her screening and temperament test.  Of course, she did great work.

Unfortunately, pet therapy services were suspended once the pandemic started.  Some facilities were able to offer their pet therapy services via zoom.  While the parrots were able to adapt to zoom calls, we unsurprisingly couldn't find a way to get our ferrets to sit still.  Additionally, ferrets are susceptible to COVID-19 (as well as the human flu!) so it may be some time before they return to their role as therapy pets.

​This year has been a rough year for the animal's health.  In the beginning of the year, Missy the Eclectus Parrot had a skin infection that was resistant to treatment.  After a biopsy, the veterinarian was able to prescribe the best medication to do the job and Missy had a full recovery.  However her training to accept an oral syringe was exhausted by the lengthy course of treatment and she had to be toweled to be given medication for the last couple weeks.  Missy will likely have stress bars on her feathers for some time following this illness.  Our other minor illness was Bruce, the Veiled Chameleon, who had a minor infection which was successfully treated with antibiotics.  The majority of our illness management was due to end of life care for our Bearded Dragon (Lizard of Oz), our hedgehog (Xena), and our ferret (Jack).  We also had expensive emergency veterinary bills due to a disaster beyond our control.

In July of this year, there was a electrical fire in a shared space at part of our residence and smoke drifted into our unit.  As soon as fire fighters cleared us for re-entry, we immediately took our parrots to Pender Veterinary Centre for emergency services.  Parrots, like other birds, have very sensitive respiratory systems.  Smoke inhalation can  cause serious harm or even be fatal.  We were not allowed to enter the facility due to COVID-19 precautions which was likely an additional stress for our birds.  Domino and Missy both received oxygen treatment overnight.  Our two other parrots fortunately did not show any impact from the smoke inhalation. In the morning, Missy and Domino were cleared to travel to their regular veterinarian.  Our regular veterinarian cleared Domino to return home, but Missy continued to be monitored and received oxygen therapy as she was most impacted by the smoke.  After a stressful 24 hours, Missy was cleared to go home with medication.  Since then, all of our parrots have made a full recovery and no other animals have shown signs of being affected by the smoke.  Fortunately no lives were lost and there was no lasting damage to our property.

In October, Xena the hedgehog passed away.  She joined us in 2017 and was an animal ambassador for three years.  While she did not enjoy being held, she did enjoy exploring new places and eating her favorite meal worm treats.  With Xena, we noticed gradual weight loss in the spring but no cause could be determined.  In late August, her weight dropped substantially and she stopped eating independently.  She was fed by oral syringe, given fluids, and treated for a urinary tract infection.  After recovering, her health declined again. Further diagnostics revealed multiple tumors.  Due to her condition, she was not a good surgical candidate so her quality of life was monitored until it reached a point that we decided to have her humanely euthanized to eliminate further suffering.  Like many older hedgehogs, Xena became wobbly in her final months.  Many new hedgehog owners have heard of Wobbly Hedgehog Syndrome and may automatically jump to this conclusion.  In most cases, if the wobbliness occurs quickly or suddenly, there is likely another cause such as infection or dehydration.  Always take your hedgehog to a knowledgeable veterinarian to determine the cause of their symptoms.

Finally, Jack the ferret was euthanized at the end of December after a long period of illness.  Jack was diagnosed with adrenal disease in 2018 and received a hormone implant.  Early in 2020, he was also diagnosed with insulinoma and given medication to manage his symptoms.  While his insulinoma was still well managed at the time of his death, it was his adrenal disease that had stopped responding to treatment.  When his quality of life declined, we decided to have him humanely euthanized.  Jack was an animal ambassador for five years and he passed away a few months shy of sixth birthday.  Jack is known by our fans for his bond with our cat, Peach.  He will be missed.

This year, we made the decision to fill in the vacancy that was left by Kurt the Green Cheek Conure who passed away early in 2019.  We settled on adding a Quaker Parrot (or Monk Parakeet).  We wanted to have a smaller bird that would be a suitable size for Domino, Kurt's surviving mate.  But we also wanted a species that could add some diversity to our usual talking points.  Quaker Parrots are a common invasive species in different part of the world and are actually illegal to own in some parts of the United States due to their tendency to make large nests.  Quakers are known for making little birdie apartment complexes with some nests being as large as a small car.  These nests can have as many as 27 different units which will be occupied by the Quaker flock as well as other bird species.  These nests create significant problems in urban environments which is part of the reason that they become illegal as pets in certain areas.  

Our staff named our new little friend Quito!  He hatched on March 1, 2020 and was able to come home in May.  He's already started talking and his favorite activities include screaming with Jubilee (our macaw), bathing in the sink, and trying to make friends with Domino.  He has attended some of our events for socialization and is learning quickly from his peers.  We hope that he will be fun regular addition to our programs in 2021.  Until then, he has been enjoying his life as a spoiled pet.

At the time of writing, the future of Ferrets and Friends seems uncertain.  It is possible that we might close as a business or that we might shift directions in the near future.  We are incredibly grateful for all the opportunities we have had and for all of our friends who have invited us into their homes, schools, and communities.  It has been a pleasure serving you and sharing our passion for animals with you.  Change can be a scary thing, but it's important to take a moment to appreciate what life has given you and to recognize the new opportunities in every loss.  Grief and love are two sides of the same coin.  As painful as our losses are, it is that pain that reveals the depth of our love and what a miracle it has been to have a love like that in the first place.  

​We are ending this year in gratitude.  For all those who kept our fridges full when we were hungry, who supported us when we were struggling, and who celebrated with us in our accomplishments.  What a wonderful world we live in to be able to share it with people like you.  Thank you!

We often get asked about whether it is possible to have a pet ferret if you also have a pet bunny, parrot, or other small mammal in the home.  There are many stories about pet ferrets causing injury or even death to other pets, but these accidents are preventable.  In this series, we are going to discuss different elements that you should be aware of before you mix a pet ferret with other prey type pets.  

This is the fourth part of this series.  You can find links to the parts down below. In the first part we already discussed the biology and domestication process of ferrets.  In the second part we discussed how to make your other animal friend safe and comfortable.  In the third part, we started our focus on ferrets.  In this section, we will cover more advanced training techniques that can be used to desensitize the ferret and delay the predatory response.

This is not a training process that we recommend for the average pet owner.  For most pet owners, it should be sufficient to desentize the animals as we discussed in previous posts and to prevent direct interaction between them.  We are sharing our training techniques for other professionals who work in animal ambassador programs or provide educational services using live animals.  In this type of work, these animals are often transported in travel carriers to unfamiliar places and there are more variables that can be difficult to control.  This training is an unnecessary risk for casual pet owners who have more control over their home environment and reducing risks of accidental interaction.  The goal of this training is to create more time for intervention in case of an accidental interaction or exposure.  In the case of educational programs, this could be as simple as a well-intentioned program participant moving an animal carrier closer to another carrier without realizing that the space between the ferret carrier and rabbit carrier were intentional.  Or it could be an unsupervised child opening the parrot travel carrier while the animal handler is presenting the ferret.  Mistakes happen and accidents happen.  Hopefully this training can help prevent them from becoming an emergency.

This training process assumes that both animals are already highly socialized and desensitized to new environments.  Target training is recommended and flight recall should already be trained for birds.  The prey type animal should already have enough exposure to ferrets that there is no fear response or agitation caused by the ferret’s presence.  

The first step in this process is to gauge the ferret’s predatory drive.  How does the ferret respond when you wave a feather in their face?  Will the ferret chase a toy mouse on a string?  How is the ferret’s impulse control while playing?  Does the ferret easily get carried away or does the ferret show inhibition with biting by being gentle or avoiding nipping?  Some ferrets are going to require a longer training process than others.  This helps determine where to start.  

If you’ve already target trained the ferret, that is good, but I also recommend training this auditory cue.  If you remember from the first part, ferrets are very near-sighted, but they have an excellent ability to locate a sound.  For our ferrets, we provide a consistent tapping sound on the floor.  We want to train the ferret to locate the source of the sound instead of using a target because the ferret will be capable of doing this over a greater distance and they will notice a sound more quickly than a nonmoving visual object.  We want the sound to capture their attention in a way that would be more difficult to do with a target stick.  The reason we train this behavior is for a common behavioral training trick.  If you want to stop an animal from doing an unwanted behavior, you can give the animal a task to perform that competes with the unwanted behavior.  In this case, the unwanted behavior is the ferret investigating a new animal.  The ferret cannot investigate a new animal if it is locating the source of a sound that is in a different direction than the new animal.  Those two behaviors are in competition.  We want the ferret to decide between locating the source of this sound which has a reward or investigating this new animal which is rewarding by satisfying their curiosity.  But we are going to manipulate the situation so that coming to where we are tapping will be more rewarding than following their instinct to investigate the new animal.  From there, we can work on training them to ignore the new animal.

In the video clip below, you can see part of this training process with Jack that was done in 2017.

Depending on the level of predatory instinct, you may have to start training using substitutes.  This can be a stuffed animal that has the other animal’s scent.  For parrots, it is easiest to use their molted feathers.  What you will do is to make these objects move in ways that are stimulating for the ferret and then you want to reward for “calm”.  This may involve some shaping.  You may place the feather on the floor and then call the ferret away before you progress to instigating the unwanted behavior.  If a ferret reaches for the object with an open mouth, you may want to work on training for calmly sniffing the object before asking the ferret to move away.  This training is tricky because you are instigating the unwanted behavior.  It is important not to scold or scruff your ferret for failing as this will cause the ferret to become frustrated.  Simply ignore any failures, and reward behaviors that bring the ferret closer to being calm and disinterested.

After this, you can start introducing the other animal in training sessions.  You should have more than one trainer working together especially if the prey type animal has not been exposed to this situation and it is uncertain exactly how they will respond.  You can use a harness on the ferret for additional control, but this may also cause distraction or confusion for the ferret.  

First you present the animal out of the ferret’s immediate range, but close enough that the ferret recognizes the new stimulus.  If the ferret comes towards the other animal, you can lift the animal further out of reach.  Also be aware that if the ferret is coming towards the animal, this can cause the other animal to react in fear or cause them to flee which is the opposite of what you want to happen.  By lifting the other animal further out of reach, you want to maintain that animal’s comfort and trust in this process.  At the same time that the new animal is presented, the tapping sound should also start.  This can be done by you or the other trainer.  This behavior should also have been generalized to the other trainer before starting any sessions with the new animal.

At first, the ferret may choose to investigate the new animal instead of performing the desired behavior.  As before, failure is ignored.  If the ferret is not staying calm and is persistent in its efforts to access the new animal, then you should return to earlier steps in the training process.  If the ferret loses interest once the new animal is out of reach and is staying calm, then continue with the process.  The ferret should start choosing to locate the sound and receive its reward.

From here, you continue to present the new animal so that it is more within the ferret’s reach.  If the ferret reverts to trying to investigate the new animal, then increase the distance again.  Once the ferret can constantly perform this behavior as desired, then you can start desensitizing triggering behaviors.  ​

In July of 2020, we filmed Jack modeling his trained behaviors for the purposes of this series. Jack was so uninterested in the presence of the parrots that he decided to go take a nap instead.  We had to encourage him to even acknowledge the birds so that we could show what the training would look like. 

For this training, we have mostly worked with parrots.  Parrots are at higher risk of flying and landing on a person who might be holding a ferret, becoming startled and flying off, or potentially having a crash landing.  The flight behavior is also very stimulating to predatory animals.  For this training, we have the parrots do flight recall out of reach of the ferret.  The ferret should be exposed to the movements, sounds, and breeze that is caused by the bird flying overhead.  Then we want to reward for calm or give the ferret another task to complete while this is occurring.  We do not want the bird to be in reach of the ferret or to land near the ferret during this training.  This is additional desensitization.  

Again, the goal of this training is to increase the length of time that you have to make an intervention in case of an accident in which the ferret and the other animal have access to each other.  If the ferret suddenly realizes that a bunny, chinchilla, or parrot happens to be within reach, you want the ferret’s first response to look for a behavioral cue that means an opportunity for a reward rather than the excitement of seeing a new animal.  You are trying to encourage the inhibition of a predatory response and creating a new meaning for this stimulus other than what is being provided by the ferret’s instincts.  This training does not eliminate the predatory response or mean that the ferret is now safe to have around prey type animals.  Again, we do not recommend this training for regular pet owners.  

Hopefully you now have a better understanding of the dynamics between ferrets and other household pets.  

​

We often get asked about whether it is possible to have a pet ferret if you also have a pet bunny, rodent, or parrot in the home.  There are many stories about pet ferrets causing injury or even death to other pets, but these accidents are preventable.  In this series, we are going to discuss different elements that you should be aware of before you mix a pet ferret with other prey type pets.  

This is the second part of this series.  You can find links to the other parts in this series down below. In the first part we already discussed the biology and domestication process of ferrets.  Now, we are going to discuss methods of safety for other pets in your home.

Here at Ferrets and Friends, we have ferrets as well as parrots, bunnies, chinchillas, and a hedgehog.  Our rule of thumb for safety is that there should always be at least two to three barriers between the ferrets and the other animals with one of those barriers being a door which is ferret proof.  You would think that doors are usually ferret proof, but ferrets can fit wherever their skull fits.  In the case of smaller ferrets (usually girls), some are actually able to squeeze under the door.  If a door does not latch, it is not uncommon for ferrets to figure out how to push or pull the door open. 

We never assume that a cage meant for another animal is ferret proof.  At one point we kept one of our parrot cages out in the living area which the ferrets were allowed to roam for the exercise.  The parrot cage was purchased because it had a tall stand and no bars for ferrets to climb to reach the main portion of the cage.  One day, a cat scratching post was moved about a foot away from the parrot cage and one of the ferrets was able to climb to the top of the post, jump the distance to the portion of the parrot cage that had bars, and climb to the top.  Fortunately, neither the parrot or ferret was hurt in this scenario.  But this caused us to change our safety procedures to require a door in addition to barriers provided by cages.  Even if your ferret has never shown interest in climbing onto a table or the top of a bookcase, it is usually because they simply have not tried it yet and does not mean that they are incapable.  You do not want them to discover their new climbing or jumping abilities when you are not supervising them and your other pets are left vulnerable in their cage.  Accidents happen and sometimes a door to a ferret cage isn’t latched correctly or your creative parrot has invented a new escape through their food door.  Having separate rooms significantly reduces the risk of each animal encountering the other during their unauthorized adventure.  ​

We have had many conversations with people about what type of pet they would like to add to their family.  There are many things to consider such as how social the animal is, how much mess there might be to clean, life expectancy, and lifestyle compatibility.  Pets are also a financial commitment and it can be difficult to get an idea of exactly what a new pet will cost.  Since we care for a variety of animals, we decided to put together some charts based on our experience of caring for these different animals.  We decided to factor our veterinary costs differently than other resources.  Instead of factoring the average cost of a wellness exam and standard annual care for a healthy animal, we also looked at our experience of how often the specific type of animal may become sick and the typical costs of end of life illnesses.  We added these costs to the annual wellness costs for the animal's lifespan and then divided these costs by the average lifespan.  For example, a single ferret might cost $300 to care for in a year in which they are healthy, but ferrets are prone to many end of life illness that can be expensive to treat.  When you factor this in, it raises the average annual cost to $600 per year.  That's a big difference!  So ferret owners should expect to spend $300 per year caring for their pet during a healthy year and set aside an additional $300 per year for potential illnesses.  We hope that this information is useful for pet parents as they factor in a budget for their new family member.

To give you an idea of how we came to our numbers, we are providing an example with our eleven pound tabby cat, Peach.  Her annual wellness exam with vaccinations is about $80.  However, we have budgeted $200 for veterinary expenses to cover potential illnesses she may have over her lifetime.  Since cats are a more common household pet, you may be able to compare your budget for feline expenses against ours.  These numbers should also give you some frame of reference as you compare other types of animals on our list.

We are only putting together numbers for small mammals in our care.  While there are many other small mammals in the pet trade, we do not have numbers that we can use for guinea pigs, rats, mice, hamsters, or gerbils.  We would expect that the numbers for a Guinea Pig might be similar to the Chinchilla, while number for hamsters, gerbils, and mice should be less than our numbers for our Hedgehog.  Rats would probably fall between the Hedgehog and Chinchilla range. 

For start up costs, we are including items that are typically bought only once or infrequently  in the animal's lifespan.  This includes a cage, food bowls, hay bins, hides or shelter, and water bottle or water dish.  We are not including the cost of the animal in start up costs or the cost of the first bag of food or initial wellness exam.  Your expected first year budget can be found by adding the annual cost and the start up cost.  

With small mammals, the combination of veterinary costs and shorter lifespans play a huge role in their annual budget.  The annual veterinary budget for each animal is as follows: ferret ($400), rabbit ($250), chinchilla ($100), and hedgehog ($200).  Chinchillas typically have a longer lifespan and fewer illnesses so this more evenly spreads their veterinary costs over time, while hedgehogs have short lifespans and a variety of common illnesses so you can expect to spend more money in a shorter amount of time.  Rabbits and ferrets are both prone to emergency veterinary visits and are susceptible to different illnesses.  As mentioned previously, ferrets have very high end of life health care needs and require annual vaccinations like dogs and cats, so they have the highest annual budget.

You may notice that our rabbits surprisingly have the lowest start up cost of our other animals.  This is because we do not have a cage for our rabbits.  We use a small bedroom as their enclosure instead of using a cage or a pen.  While the ferrets are also given a small room as their enclosure, we do have a cage for them that we use to contain them during cleaning time or when we travel to longer events.  Since the ferrets have a room as their enclosure, they have a cheaper cage that would not be adequate as their main housing.  For a sturdier cage, the cost would be about $100 higher.  For a rabbit, if you choose to use a cage or pen, you would need to add in this additional cost.

It was difficult for us to estimate our food budget for the different types of parrots in our care.  One of the advantages of having a multiple parrots is that we can often split the food between the parrots.  They also receive a variety of fresh foods as part of their diet.  These fresh foods are also consumed by other animals (and people!).  Again, the start up costs only include the cage and an initial purchase of toys, perches, and food dishes if they were not adequately supplied with the cage.  The start up costs do not include the cost of the animal.  For parrots, this is often the highest initial expense with many small parrots costing $200-$300 and larger parrots costing $1,500-$2,500.  

Veterinary costs for sick parrots do not have as much of an impact on the annual budget due to their long lifespans.  In addition to typical wellness exams, parrots should also have their blood work checked.  You can expect to spend a bit more on their annual wellness exam than you would for your dog or cat. They also require a larger budget for toys and enrichment.  Parrots are social and emotional animals.  Boredom can cause frustration, behavioral problems, and psychological or physical illness.  Over 60% of our annual budget for our macaw parrot is the cost of toys and enrichment for her.  She's a young parrot so this may change as her energy levels change over time, but for now, this is what our numbers are showing.

We have a variety of lizards that we work with here at Ferrets and Friends so for this selection we tried to pick some of the most popular pets as well as our largest lizard, our Argentine Tegu.  Since we keep a large collection, we use stacking enclosures, radiant heat panels, and a thermostat to maintain heat levels.  For high humidity animals, we also use a humidifier.  For start up costs, we included the enclosure, heating system, hides, water dishes, and humidifier (where applicable).  For annual costs, we included food, substrate, UVB strips, basking bulbs, and veterinary care.  We actually reduced the cost of our veterinary care budget as we realize that most people do not take their reptiles to the veterinarian each year for wellness exams.  Instead, we tried to reflect the costs for illness, fecal exams, and typical end of life care.  Out of the animals listed, chameleons have the highest veterinary cost average due to their shorter lifespan (the same thing happened with hedgehogs as we discussed earlier).  For Bearded Dragons, you should get their fecals checked once a year and they sometimes need to be treated minor illnesses.  Leopard geckos are very easy to care for and the longer lifespan makes their average veterinary costs the lowest of the group.  With reptiles, proper husbandry is really important.  Many expensive veterinary costs are avoidable by making sure that your reptile has the proper diet and environment. 
As we were putting together this information, we were surprised to find that we actually spend more money annually feeding our Tegu than feeding our cat.  She costs an average of $440 per year to feed, just barely surpassing the food budget for our favorite feline.

Snakes are probably one of the most budget friendly pets.  Young snakes might only eat once a week.  Older and larger snakes might only eat once per month.  Most of our snakes use either a radiant heat panel or a heating pad which do not need to be replaced as often as bulbs.  Feeding a frozen/thawed diet of mice or rats makes it easy to buy feeders in bulk.  Corn snakes, milk snakes, and king snakes are all very easy for beginners.  While Ball Pythons are docile, they have several common problems that are better for keepers with more experience.  The largest snake in our collection is a red-tail boa.  

For this last group, we made some liberal estimates.  Our tortoises receive their pellet supplement once per week and they receive fresh food throughout the rest of the week.  We estimate that we spend about $174 per year to feed our two tortoises.  We did not cut this number in half as we did with our bunny food budget estimate because we did not think it would be accurate reflection of the spending for a single tortoise.  The rest of the budget is substrate changes and replacement bulbs which would need to be done in the same way regardless if you had one or two tortoises. 

By far the most affordable animals in our care, our South American Horned Frog (or Pacman Frog) and Desert Blonde Tarantula finish up this list.  They certainly shouldn't be breaking anyone's bank account.  Like the other animals, set up costs did not include the cost for the animal itself.  These only include the cage, water dish, and hides.  We also did not factor in veterinary care for the frog or the tarantula.  In fact, our frog might be one of the only frogs that our veterinarian sees in his practice!  

So, when people ask us which animal is the most expensive animal in our care, we can now point them to this article and answer with confidence that it is our cat!  We can say with some confidence that most animals in the small pet trade will be less expensive than a pet dog or a pet horse, but some are not as cheap as you would expect.  Owning a parrot, ferret, rabbit, or large lizard can cost nearly as much as a cat or a small dog.  There are also going to be many individual variables.  Some may wear through their toys faster or have special dietary needs.  When one of our animals is sick, it is not uncommon for us to see veterinary bills of $500-$1500 in order to diagnose and treat an illness.  We factor these numbers into our animal care budget.  Hopefully with this information, now you can too!

It has been another eventful year here at Ferrets and Friends, LLC!  This summer was our busiest summer yet with a total of 99 programs reaching over 2,000 participants in June through August.  To accommodate our increasingly busy schedule, we have hired two additional animal educators, Sam and Donte.  

Unfortunately, we were unable to move forward with our plan to add pony parties to our list of available packages as we had hoped.  This was due to logistical issues with insurance coverage and scheduling.  For now, we will be continuing to offer the same mix of packages that have made us a popular choice for live animal shows in Maryland, DC, and Virginia.

This year was our first year that we did not add any new animals to our program.  We also debuted the remaining new animals that were added to our program in 2018.  This includes Thor the albino boa constrictor and Loki the blue-tongue skink.  Jubilee the Harlequin Macaw parrot also began flight training this year as she has regrown her flight feathers after being clipped.  With her three foot wingspan, she is a sight to behold in the air!

We returned to the World of Pets Expo this year at the Maryland State Fairgrounds.  This year, we were stationed next to The Drawing Zoo and we provided an educational show on Saturday and Sunday.  Many of you came to visit and were excited to say hello to your favorite friends.  Even Sokka, our more shy chinchilla, made a rare appearance.

In 2019, most of our animals continued to be in good health. Our oldest ferret, Jack, has continued to have his adrenal disease symptoms under control with the use of his implant.  Jessica, the bunny, had a brief period of not eating which was quickly resolved by a visit to the veterinarian.  For rabbits, it is important that they eat consistently throughout the day otherwise they can have severe problems with their GI track.  If they stop eating or defecating, they should be seen by a veterinarian immediately to determine the cause and to get them back on track to prevent further harm.

Unfortunately, we had two unexpected deaths this year.  The first was Kurt, our green cheek conure.  Kurt was a personal pet of the owner before Ferrets and Friends was even an idea.  He became a favorite among staff for his tendency to say "thank you!" and his goofy antics which included hanging upside down and investigating people's jewelry and accessories.  Kurt's death was sudden and unexpected.  During an out of cage training session, Kurt attempted flight but instead fluttered to the floor and appeared to be in pain.  As the trainer scooped him up to assess his condition and apply first aid, Kurt passed away in less than a minute.  The exact cause of death is undetermined, but thought to be an aneurysm or a traveling blood clot.  Kurt's mate, Domino, was removed from the show schedule for six months to allow her time for grieving and to establish a new routine.  During this time, Domino bonded more closely with staff members.  To everyone's surprise, Domino returned to doing shows with more enthusiasm than expected.  She even started saying "thank you", a phrase that she no doubt learned from Kurt.  Kurt will always be remembered for his lively attitude and his spunk. 

Our second unexpected death was our Panther Chameleon, Genie.  He began to spend more time towards the bottom of his cage and was taken to our veterinarian for assessment.  His blood work all returned normal with no obvious cause for illness.  Our veterinarian was able to rule out infection and other problems. Months later, he started losing weight and had a gradual decline.  After being hydrated by hand and tong-fed, Genie stopped eating and drinking all together.  He was giving subcutaneous fluids with the hopes that it might perk him up to return to eating.  With no improvement in his condition and no obvious paths of treatment, Genie was humanely euthanized to prevent further suffering. 

In 2019, we did not add any new animals to our program.  We did, however, add two new staff members.  We are excited to have Sam and Donte as the newest members of our team.  Sam has experience working with exotic pets at the veterinary practice where she works.  Donte has been part of the pet care team at a local pet store and plans to go to school for herpetology (the study of reptiles).  We look forward to seeing them grow and develop their own personal styles in our programs. 

This year we had an opportunity to pause, catch up, and reassess our own goals and growth.  We have continued our partnership with Pets on Wheels in their mission to help lick loneliness through pet therapy.  Part of that partnership includes Hospice of the Chesapeake who has linked us with patients who would benefit from a visit from our qualified animal friends.  In 2020, we are hoping to expand our partnership in a way that might bring us in a more artistic direction.  Stay tuned to find out more! 

Until then, we hope you have all had a happy holiday and we wish you a happy new year!

It is so important to recognize that turtles and tortoises are long-lived animals, and therefore mature much like human beings (and in some cases they mature much more slowly than humans). When it takes an animal 15 year or more to be able to reproduce the loss of mature adults can be extremely devastating to populations - and that is often what leads to the decline of turtles and tortoises. They are often harvested for their meat, meaning that the largest individuals are usually targeted for poaching and meat trade which can reduced reproduction tremendously. Collection of animals for pet trade is also devastating, but not necessarily to the degree that poaching or death of adult individuals can be. I encourage everyone to show compassion to these creatures - especially with the frequency in which they cross roads. Stopping to move a turtle or tortoise from a roadway can have huge positive impacts on populations. 

I wanted to take the time to highlight some of my favorite animals in need: turtles and tortoises. After my friend's took a  trip to the Turtle Conservancy last year, the brought me back a 2018 publication of the most endangered turtles and tortoises  of the world that was distributed by the Turtle Conservancy. It is that publication which I am basing this blog list off of. The species listed are not North American, but it could only be a matter of time until some of the turtles and tortoises of North America begin to make an appearance on lists like this one. 

For More information on these tortoises and turtles please see the link below for the 2018 publication of "Turtles in trouble" put out by the Turtle Conservancy:

https://www.turtleconservancy.org/turtles-in-trouble
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​The American alligator is a large reptile native to the southeastern united states Previously the American alligator was a federally listed endangered species. In the early 1900s the alligator was hunted close to extinction which brought it to be listed under the Endangered Species Act. The hunting of these animals was prohibited, and their habitat was protected. In the 1980s the species had recovered enough to be removed from the endangered species list. Today, however, the large reptile is still protected due to its similar appearance to the American crocodile which is currently protected due to low population numbers (they are on the rise though!) Hunting of the American alligator is currently allowed, but it is regulated.

Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission have statistics that show alligator attacks have actually increased from around 6 per year in 1971-1986 to around 10 per year from 1987-2017. This is likely due to human population increasing in the areas that alligators call home. Another source showed that human population was positively correlated with alligator attacks - more people, more likely the chance of an encounter. Humans also increase their chances of conflict by feeding alligaors (intentionally or unintentionally - throwing fish off the dock when alligators are present in the area can produce a similar association as feeding the gators), swimming in bodies of fresh water which gators are present in, allowing pets or children to play or drink from open bodies of fresh water, and generally approaching alligators fro photographs or not giving the animals space. The best way to mitigate conflicts with alligators are to simply leave them alone.

More information on American alligators can be found:

1. https://myfwc.com/wildlifehabitats/wildlife/alligator/data/
2. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/reptiles/a/american-alligator/
3. https://nationalzoo.si.edu/animals/american-alligator
4. https://www.nwf.org/Educational-Resources/Wildlife-Guide/Reptiles/American-Alligator​
5. https://animaldiversity.org/accounts/Alligator_mississippiensis/
   

​The American crocodile is a large carnivorous reptile which can grow to over 15 feet long and up to 2,000lbs. it is an at-risk species throughout its range in North and South America. There is not much information known about their population status except for in the United States, but illegal hunting and habitat loss are two factors that are heavily influencing the populations. 

American crocodiles have a global status of “vulnerable”, which means that this species is likely to become endangered unless the circumstances that are threatening the species survival and reproduction are improved. In Florida, the northern most extent of the American crocodile’s range, laws have been put in place to protect the American crocodile and there has been improvement in the reproduction and survivorship which has led them to be state listed as Threatened.

There are 22 species of crocodilians found in the whole world, of these species only 13 of them are crocodiles, and only two crocodilians are found in the United states - the American alligator, and the American crocodile! In the U.S. the American crocodile thrives in the mangrove swamps, bays, and creeks of Florida and tends to spend the winter months further inland than during the summers and breeding season.  

The population in Florida, however, is quite a small portion of the crocodiles range. A majority of the population lives in southern Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, and the northern portions of South America. A recent push has begun in Jamaica to protect the American crocodile, which is an amazing step for their conservation. One of the tools being used to conserve this species is to educate residents with “Croc-Wise” – an educational outreach program targeting communities and schools. This program will help to inform residents about the natural history of the crocodile, their preferred habitat, and to help prevent human-crocodile conflicts from occurring.

​This is a huge step, considering a VICE article written in 2016 (https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/8ge4yv/the-rogue-conservationist-trying-to-save-jamaicas-alligators) which discusses how decades of development has destroyed much of the habitat for the crocodiles, overfishing has depleted the food sources of the crocodiles, and a surge in demand for crocodile meat has led to increased poaching (which is still a big issue now in 2019). At the time this article was written the government had not shown much interest in protecting the crocodiles and one individual, Lawrence Henriques, who had taken it upon himself to help the crocodiles out in any way he could.

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The National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA) is managing the American crocodile population in Jamaica. The management includes a crocodile rescue and research operations committee which are a combination of efforts from NEPA the Hope zoo, and several other NGO's and private individuals. Together they relocate nuisance animals, perform research and general assessments of the crocodile population, and formulate policies and strategies to create effective management plans. All conservation efforts will hopefully keep these creatures from going extinct, and create a happy environment for the crocodiles and human beings to be able to coexist peacefully. To learn more about the American crocodile more information can be found at the link provided below:

1. https://www.nepa.gov.jm/new/services_products/publications/brochures/docs/crocodile.pdf
2. https://www.fws.gov/verobeach/MSRPPDFs/Croc.pdf
3. http://spacecoastdaily.com/2017/04/florida-wildlife-american-crocodiles-numbers-have-increased-from-300-to-1500/
4. https://databasin.org/datasets/a125e5b4ad4c474b93cff0cd95748866
5. http://www.animalspot.net/american-crocodile.html
6. http://santivachronicle.com/Content/Default/Outdoor/Article/LIVING-SANIBEL-Charles-Sobczak-American-Crocodile/-3/35/6572
7. http://www.themiamiplanet.org/2011/10/10/american-crocodiles-scare-but-co-exist/