The Ferret Mansion

Many pet owners know that pet toys can be expensive especially if you shop at large pet store franchises. Ferrets are great pets but require a lot of attention keeping them entertained. This article will give you a great idea for making your little wiggly friends have a lot of fun that is fairly cheap on your budget. The main idea of this project is to make what I like to call a "Ferret Mansion". The idea is to buy a bunch of cheap construction supplies with varying textures and to build a big cardboard mansion for you little friends with different kinds of rooms. I sat down and built several rooms and then linked them all together to make a big mansion. When I was done, I set it up in a room I let the ferrets play. Using their "new object radar", they soon found the new object in the room and loved exploring all the different rooms. They had so much fun in it, they would even often sleep inside it.

Supplies

You can use any kind of craft or construction supplies as long as you know your ferret will not choke on them or harm them. One of my ferrets had an obsession with "rubber nubbies" and it would be in the best interest of your ferret's health to not include things like this that will harm them. Here are some things I used for construction supplies.

Cardboard boxes - essential for the shape and structure of the mansion

Bags of cotton balls - good for ferret sleeping quarters, ferrets love slinking through it

Party streamers - good for tangling from the ceiings of the rooms

Bubble wrap - good for making windows in the mansion, let's you see in

Carpeting pieces - ferrets love carpet, can be used on walls, floors, ceilings, crawl tubes

Large PVC tubes - making adjoining hallways

Duct tape - essential for construction, make sure you ferrets don't chew it

String - essential for construction, joining walls

Utility knife - cutting the cardboard

Pencil - punching holes in the carboard

Old t-shirts - good for making hammocks, walkthrough doors, and other things

Some Mansion Room Ideas

My "Ferret Mansion" had a total of about 5 rooms each themed differently. Here are some ideas for rooms to customize your own mansion.

The Party Barn - Get a medium cardboard box, making the top angled like a barn. In the middle of the box, make a second story with the floor out of stretched cloth. Cut a small hold in the cloth floor (so the ferret can slip through). Fill the first floor and half of the second floor with cotton balls. Cut a hole in the second story for a doorway. Link a walkway tube (carpet, cardboard, or PVC) up to the second floor.

The Bedroom Ballroom - Get a medium box and hang lots of streamers and yarn from the ceiling of the box. Cut window holes out and patch the window slots with bubble wrap. Add a piece of carpet for the flooring. Cut a door flap somewhere.

The Hallway Maze - Make several carpet tubes and link them together (stacked with holes linking them together). Have each end of the hallway link to a room.

The Observatory - If you have a tall structure on the mansion, you can get half of a large gerbil / rabbit ball and use the half as a dome for an observatory at the top.

The Kitchen - Take a small box and cut several holes all throughout it (big enough the ferret can go in and out of). Inside the box, use yarn to attach several of the "molasses star" ferret treats the walls.

This activity is fun and is only limited by your imagination and construction ability. Ferrets are interesting and active animals so give them some joy and build them a mansion!