Q: My old ferret has 2 dots on his ear left ear I believe, and one on his paw, they do not look like birthmarks, my boyfriend thinks they are. My new ferret, however, only has one dot tattooed in his ear. It’s the same color as the double dot tattoos, but its bigger, almost like a small circle in the ear rather than a small dot. Just wondering if anyone else has a ferret with these and if they’re tattoos what does it mean exactly
Answer: If your ferret has two blue dots tattooed in his right ear, chances are he’s from Marshall Farms, a large breeder located in Western New York. They tattoo one dot when the ferret is spayed or neutered and the other when it’s descented. Some Marshall ferrets also have a tattoo on their toe.
What Do Two Dots Mean?
Before a breeder ships the ferrets to the stores they spay and neuter them, which means the cute little buggers get their first tattoo. Then they add a second one, meaning they were descented. It is to identify what has been preformed because they do neuter/spaying in assembly line fashion. Ferrets are in the skunk family, that’s why they have the so called musky odor some complain about.
What Does a Single Dot Mean?
A single dot could very well mean that the tattooer was careless and tattooed the ear too fast and didn’t separate the dots. In general the only ferrets that Marshall only puts one dot on is the ones that are only descented and those ferrets are NEVER sold to the public, only to laboratories or kept in house as breeding stock.
Paw Tattoo Spots
Along with the double dot tattoos on the right ear, they also tattoo a toe. The toe tattoo can be found on either foot or any toe pad and is usually not seen unless the fur is very thin there, or getting the paw very wet and deliberately looking for it. This tattoo identifies the vet that performed the fixing and descenting of the ferret.
I’ve contacted Marshalls myself about it, and they only told me what the dots on the ears meant, so I personally think the dots on their toes signify something that they don’t want us to know. They ARE a mass breeder, after all, and don’t care about the ferrets so who knows.
Ferret Papers
Where did you get your ferret? If you got it from a pet shop, you should have also been given some papers that would tell you what breeder it came from. Those papers would also mention what the ear dots are for.
Tattoo Colors
Tattoos come in many colors (blue, purple, green, red, and orange) and patterns (letters, symbols, or dots). The most common tattoo is the Marshall Farms marking of two blue dots in the right ear.
Heres how different ferret breeders mark their animals:
- Real Canadian Ferrets: Real Canadian Ferrets (another mass breeder that’s based in Canada if you didn’t know that by the name) uses one dot/small line in the ear to show that the ferret has been neutered and descented.
- Path Valley Farms: Most ferrets purchased in pet stores are from Marshall farms. The ones that aren’t, are from Path Valley Farms. Both companies tattoo blue dots on the ferret’s ear to indicate that they have been neutered/spayed and descented. A dot for each.
- Triple F Farms: I’ve heard they tattoo like Marshall’s but I’ve never seen one personally. I’ve heard that Triple F Farms is tattooing their ferrets the same way. I’m not sure if that’s true, I don’t have any ferrets from TF, but this is what I’ve heard from other TF ferret owners.
- Mystic Ferrets: Mystic Ferrets are tattooed on the abdomen (belly) with a four digit code number indicating that this is a genuine Mystic Ferret. This number should be quoted when registering your Mystic Ferret. The tattoo code assists in after sales support and it also allows you to track the parent breeders of your pet ferret.
Vets and Ferret Markings
I know of one new owner who rushed his ferret to the nearest emergency vet because of the blue ear spots. The vet, not experienced with ferrets, incorrectly diagnosed the dots as an ear mite infestation, and prescribed strong medications to clear up the “bruising and infection.” Not to worry, these ear dots or “tattooos” are not painful to the ferrets and are not likely to cause health problems.