From:
tansyhl@yahoo.com
Date: 2003-11-15 05:16:07 UTC
Subject: Re: She won't go into season
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
Message-ID: <2719703.1068873367961.JavaMail.root@thallium.smartgroups.com>
While I no longer breed, I did breed ferrets for about 10 years and am available to field most questions people have.
I assume that the jill is about 1 1/2 years old at this point. The first thing, obviously, is to make certain she has no underlying medical problems that would prevent her from coming in to season. Assuming she checks out okay, I have a few ideas.
First of all, I found that not every jill comes into season every breeding season. But I believe in your case one of two things is happening. You said that your jill and hob were caged together. My first theory, and the most likely, is that the hob is taking her out of season before you even know that she is coming in. I have read articles that say only penetration will bring a jill out of season, but I have had personal experience where an agressive NEUTERED gib can take a jill out...he chews on her neck and sucks on her ears, and hey, presto she comes out of season. I have seen this happen on multiple occassions, much to my chagrin.
The other difficulty may be, as they say, that familiarity breeds contempt. She may view the hob as "buddy" and not "mate". In this case, though, I would think it more likely that she would come in, but just not accept the hob as a mate. And believe me, the jills are just as opinionated on who is or is not an acceptable mate as they are about everything else. I remember when I started breeding I used to decide ahead of time which hob and jill I would breed together. Hah! By the end I was happy if the jill choose someone she was not related to. I have seen jills have reactions from screaming in the hob's ear, and then jumping out of the cage back into my arms, to having her sing to the boy half way across the room, and have HER drag HIM into bed. Some of my all time funniest ferret stories involve the varied reactions of jills to hobs...
Anyway, back on topic finally, the cure for both these problems is to keep them seperated. Another thing you may want to try is exposing her to another hob from another household as breeding season comes in. Even though she won't be ready to mate, the smell of a different hob may bring her in.
A final comment is that it is almost impossible to breed with only a single jill and hob. Their schedules are inevitabily off, they're not attracted to one another, etc etc. If you really want to breed you should consider getting more jills and at least one other hob, or have access to other hobs. You also MUST have access to a vasectomized hob, since a jill cannot breed every season, and I have not found the hormone shots to bring a jill out of season to be very effective.
I hope this of some help.
Best of luck,
tansy