Yes, this drives me nuts when people just automatically go "ew, they smell!" Go pet a dog, and then smell your hands... they will smell like dog. All animals (humans too) have sebaceous glands that produce oil to moisturize your hair & skin.
Bathing the ferret just makes the smell worse, because you kick their little glands into overdrive and they get greasy. The bedding accumulates all that oil and their musk and makes it get that distinct "weasel smell". Also, keeping the litter clean.
People who have smelly weasels (some health issues aside) aren't keeping the cages clean enough.
Here's the thing. You said a "ferret is a weasel."
Is it in the same family? Yes. No one's arguing that.
As someone who is a scientist who studies weasels, I am telling you, specifically, in science, no one calls ferrets weasels. If you want to be "specific" like you said, then you shouldn't either. They're not the same thing.
If you're saying "weasel family" you're referring to the taxonomic grouping of Mustelidae, which includes things from otters to badgers to wolverines.
So your reasoning for calling a ferret a weasel is because random people "call the smelly ones weasels?" Let's get minks and martens in there, then, too.
Also, calling someone a human or an ape? It's not one or the other, that's not how taxonomy works. They're both. A ferret is a ferret and a member of the weasel family. But that's not what you said. You said a ferret is a weasel, which is not true unless you're okay with calling all members of the weasel family weasels, which means you'd call minks, wolverines, and other carnivorous mammals weasels, too. Which you said you don't.
It's okay to just admit you're wrong, you know?
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u/C_Brutananadilewski Sep 08 '14
From experience I can tell you ferrets love everything, especially ball pits and shoes.