You may find it difficult to find a toy for your ferret that is durable enough to last more than a few days will and entertain them sufficient to warrant the cost. There are several types of toys in many varieties. Some toys stimulate the mind, while others provide a comfortable environment for your ferret to practice their natural tunneling and hiding instincts.
We’ve chosen 10 different ferret toys that are popular among pet owners to review for you so you can see what kinds of features you like. We’ve also included a short buyer’s guide where we look at the different types of toys to see if any are better than others, and we’ll take a look at how they work.
Join us while we look at durability, cost, safety, and many other things to help you make an educated purchase.
The Marshall Pet Products FT-372 Ferret Ball Pit Toy is our pick for the best overall ferret toy, and it plays into ferrets’ natural instinct to explore and dig. This large ball pit comes with 35 balls that your ferrets can dig through, and you can purchase more balls if you would like. It also includes two plastic tubes that your pets can use as tunnels to enter and exit the pit.
Our ferrets loved to chase each other through the tunnels and dig in the balls while we were reviewing the Marshall Pet Products FT-372 Ferret Ball Pit Toy, and the only thing that we can complain about it the thin material that holds the balls. After several months of play, the fabric did have some small holes in it from wear.
Pros
Large ball pit
Includes 35 balls
Can purchase extra balls
Cons
Thin material
2. Living World 60960 Teach N Treat Toy – Best Value
The Living World 60960 Teach N Treat Toy is our pick for the best value, and we believe Living World makes the best ferret toys for the money. This model features three difficulty levels and helps to slow down your pet’s eating while promoting an active mind and potentially increasing intelligence. The first level features a large disc that covers several holes at once. Your ferret will move the disc to expose the food. The second level uses covers to cover individual holes, and your pet pulls out the covers to reveal the food. The third level locks down the covers, and your pet will need to slide them to expose the food.
We enjoyed using the Living World 60960 Teach N Treat Toy with our ferrets and appreciated that it slowed down the eating habits of our heavy eater. The only complaint we have about it was that some ferrets won’t have the patience to figure out the puzzles and will lose interest as happened with one of ours.
The Kaytee 100079497 FerreTrail Fun-nels is our premium choice ferret toy. This toy is an 8-foot-long tunnel that will provide your pet with plenty of space to explore and hide. You can connect the long tunnel to other tunnels or any FerreTrail products to create even more space for your ferret to play. The tunnel expands for play, and it contracts to about 1 foot long for storage.
The downside to the Kaytee 100079497 FerreTrail Fun-nels is that we had a little difficulty keeping it open. It would continuously contract to its one-foot size within a few minutes. Another small thing we didn’t like was that you don’t get to choose the color you receive.
The Niteangel Small Pet Fun Tunnel is a shorter sized tunnel that’s about 39 inches long and 4 inches wide. It expands and contracts when you need to store it away. It’s a very flexible tube and stays put where placed. It uses a durable plastic material that’s a little thicker than some of the material tunnels.
While we were trying out the Niteangel Small Pet Fun Tunnel, one of our ferrets liked to chew on it and quickly created holes. It was also hard to get any crumbs from the accordion folds towards the center of the tunnel. One last thing we didn’t like was that its smaller than many other tunnels on this list, and you can’t link it with other components to create a larger play area.
The Marshall Pet Products FT-344 Hide-N-Sleep Alligator is a soft toy that taps into your ferret’s natural instincts to tunnel and hide. It features an attractive look that resembles an alligator, and it doubles as a soft bed that your ferret can rest inside. The alligator is hand-washable and contains no sharp edges.
The Marshall Pet Products FT-344 Hide-N-Sleep Alligator has a few flaws. It’s not for chewers, and any ferret that likes to chew will quickly make holes in the fabric. While we were reviewing it, our ferret made a hole and got stuck in the liner. We had to cut the neck of the toy to get our pet out, and this was a significant health risk. We recommend only using this toy with close supervision.
The KONG FK3 Small Animal Toy is a toy made by a company very well known for making durable pet toys. The FK3 uses the same material that the Kong dog toys use, and it’s just as durable. You can store small treats in this toy to entice your ferret to use it, and it cleans teeth and soothes gums as your pet plays.
The downside to the KONG FK3 Small Animal Toy is that some pets might ignore it as one of ours did. Another problem is that even though the rubber toy is extremely durable, our ferrets were able to bite off small pieces, which could be dangerous if they get lodged in the intestinal tract of your ferret.
The You & Me Ferret Fun Ball is another toy on this list that taps into your ferret’s natural instinct to hunt and hoard. These toys come two in a package, and each toy is extremely durable, and our pets got many months of use out of them. They have little bells in each toy so your pets can follow them long distances, and they don’t get lost as easily.
The only negative things we can say about the You & Me Ferret Fun Ball is that it’s expensive for what it is. You only get two little toys in each package.
The Marshall FT-223 Bungee Ferret Toy is a pink stuffed duck-shaped toy with a bell inside to help keep your ferrets attention. It’s connected to an elastic bungee style cord that attaches to your wire cage with a durable metal hook. Your ferret can play by trying to hide the toy, but when they let go, the elastic will pull the toy from the hiding spot. This action kept our ferrets busy every day as we reviewed this toy.
There are few downsides to the Marshall FT-223 Bungee Ferret Toy, though. The pink fur has tiny string loops that hold it to the body, and our ferrets continuously got their claws stuck. We feel that this contributed quite a bit of wear to the toy and causes it to fail sooner than it otherwise might. If your ferrets are chewers, it will only take them a few minutes to rip out the stuffing and get at the bell, which is surrounded by a flimsy plastic they might eat.
The Niteangel Ferret Activity Toy is a rope net style toy that is exceptionally durable and has many uses besides play. You can also use it as a flexible ramp between platforms in your ferret’s cage or as a verticle climb ladder. You can also use the rope net as a hammock. It comes with six metal clips so you can easily fasten it to the cage and many other items. You can also use the clips to connect two or more rope nets for more fun. The ropes are thick and durable.
The biggest problem that we had while reviewing the Niteangel Ferret Activity Toy was that some pets might not recognize it as a play toy and ignore it like two of ours did. If you use it as a ramp or other tool to get from one place to another, the ferrets do enjoy it and prefer it over the ramp in many cases, but it’s hardly a toy. Another thing we would like to comment on is that the rope to hold water and if it gets wet can begin to have an odor of mildew.
The Trixie Snack Board Logic Toy is a puzzle game that will help stimulate your ferret’s mind. It features seven different spots that you can use to hide food. Each spot has a lid that your pet can pull off to expose the compartment below. We found that this toy worked well to slow down the eating habits of our ferrets.
The things we didn’t like about the Trixie Snack Board Logic Toy include its single level of difficulty. There is no room for growth once your ferret learns how to use this toy. There is very little room for treats in this toy, and one of our ferrets discovered that he could chew the tops, which makes them hard to put them back in place.
Pros
Exercises the mind
Seven hiding spots
Cons
Only one difficulty level
Not much space for treats
Can chew the pieces
Buyer’s Guide
Let’s look at a few of the different types of toys, and some of the things you should look for when choosing a new ferret toy.
Puzzle Toys
Puzzle toys are excellent for stimulating the mind of your pet and for slowing down eating habits. These toys often come in several levels. The lower levels will be easier, and usually only require completing one step to get the reward. Higher levels are more challenging and often require completing several steps to arrive at the reward.
We have had several ferrets, as well as plenty of other pets that just won’t participate in completing the puzzle and will turn to brute force or chewing to get the reward, or they will ignore it altogether.
Tunneling Toys
Ferrets love to tunnel, and there are several brands of toy tunnels to choose from. There are two main kinds of tunnel toys. One type resembles a dryer venting hose, and you can use these to create tunnels inside and outside the cage. The downside to this type of toy is they rarely stay put and often contract. Ferrets can eat through the sides.
The other type of tunneling toy that is very popular is the hollow stuffed animal. This toy looks like an animal or a pillow, and it contains a hollow pouch that your ferret can explore and hide inside. The primary downside to this type of toy is that ferrets can chew a hole and climb into the liner where they can become trapped and possibly suffocate. We recommend only using these toys with close supervision.
Noisy Toys
Ferrets love to hunt, and many plastic balls and other small toys feature a small bell that attracts and keeps the ferret’s attention. In almost every case, our ferrets played with toys equipped with bells far longer than toys that don’t have bells.
We hope that you have enjoyed reading over these reviews and found our buyer’s guide helpful. If you have found it useful, please share these ferret toy reviews on Facebook and Twitter.
Featured image credit: Kaytee FerreTrail Flex-E Fun-nels, Amazon
Nicole is the proud mom of 3 rescue fur babies, Baby, a Burmese cat; Rosa, a New Zealand Huntaway; and Mac, a Lab/Mastiff. A Canadian expat, Nicole now lives on a lush forest property with her Kiwi husband and new baby daughter in New Zealand. She has a strong love for all animals of all shapes and sizes (and particularly loves a good interspecies friendship) and wants to share her animal knowledge and other experts' knowledge with pet lovers across the globe....Read more
