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Home > Ferrets > 17 Types of Ferrets: Colors & Patterns (With Pictures)

17 Types of Ferrets: Colors & Patterns (With Pictures)

two ferrets poking out of hole

There’s a great deal of variation in pet ferrets, but they’re all the same breed: Mustela putorius furo. That said, we can see plenty of variation when it comes to each ferret’s coat color and pattern, making it seem like there are many types of ferrets.

If you’re trying to figure out what color your ferret is, you’ll first need to identify the color of their coat and then see what pattern they have over this coat color.

The American Ferret Association lists eight colors that are seen in domestic ferrets. So what’s the rarest ferret color? Let’s take a look!

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The 17 Types of Ferrets

1. Sable Ferrets

sable ferret
Image Credit: Couperfield, Shutterstock

This is one of the most commonly seen types of ferret colors in domestic ferrets. Sable-colored ferrets will have the upper guard hairs of their coat in a rich and deep warm brown. Their undercoat will be paler, with tones of white and cream preferred for showing ferrets, but you’ll also see light golden undercoats too. Their eyes will be brown, verging on black. A sable ferret’s nose will be light brown, a speckled brown, or with a brown outline in a “T” shape.


2. Black Sable Ferrets

Sable Ferrets
Image Credit: Free-Photos, Pixabay

Black sable ferrets will have black to dark brown guard hairs with a white or cream undercoat. There shouldn’t be any warm tones in this coat color. Black sable ferrets should have black or very dark brown eyes, and their noses are preferably black or nearly black, but a speckled black nose is also allowed.


3. Chocolate Ferrets

champagne ferret
Image Credit: Couperfield, Shutterstock

Chocolate ferrets have guard hairs in a milk chocolate brown with warm tones. Their undercoat can be white verging toward golden. Chocolate ferrets will have brown or dark burgundy eyes, with pink, brown, beige, or brick-red noses. The pink nose color can also have a light brown “T” outline.


4. Champagne Ferrets

Champagne Ferret
Image Credit: Pikist

Champagne is the diluted version of a chocolate coat color. Their guard hairs will be a pale warm brown, with a white or cream undercoat. Their eyes will be burgundy tones, and either light or dark is acceptable. A champagne ferret’s nose can be pink beige or pink with a “T” outline in light brown or beige.


5. Cinnamon Ferrets

cinnamon ferret
Image Credit: Couperfield, Shutterstock

Are you curious about the rarest ferret color? This is it! Cinnamon is an unusual color and can sometimes be confused with champagne. Once you look closely at its type of ferret, you can see a distinct difference between the two! The guard hairs of a cinnamon ferret are a rich light brown with a red cast. This is especially obvious when they’re sitting in the sun. Their undercoats should be golden to white. As with the champagne coat color, they will have burgundy eyes that can be dark or light. Their nose will be preferably brick red in color, but beige or pink with a “T” outline in brick or light brown is also accepted. Sometimes a cinnamon ferret will have a pink nose, but this is not a preferred color for showing.


6. Black Ferrets

black ferret closeup
Image Credit: Ivanova N, Shutterstock

Black ferrets will have guard hairs in a true black color. Their undercoats are white or golden. They have dark brown or nearly black eyes, combined with black noses. Sometimes their noses will be speckled.


7. Albino Ferrets

albino ferret
Image Credit: Dieter444, Pixabay

This type of ferret is special because albino ferrets have an absence of any pigment or pattern. Their fur of both the guard hairs and the undercoat will be white or a pale cream. Albino ferrets have ruby red eyes and pink noses.


8. White Ferrets

White Ferret
Image By: PBarlowArt, Pixabay

You’ll sometimes see this color referred to as a dark-eyed white pattern to distinguish it from albino ferrets. Their guard hairs and undercoat will be a white to cream color, although white is preferred for showing. A dark-eyed white ferret will have burgundy eyes and a pink nose.

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Types of Ferret Patterns

Now that we know the eight colors that domestic ferrets come in, we’ll take a look at the patterns that you can see within these colors!


9. Standard Pattern

A ferret with a standard pattern has 90% to 100% colored guard hairs, with the remaining colored white. Their bodies will be lighter in color than their points, and they will have a fill or “T” mask across their faces.


10. Roan Pattern

Roan patterned ferrets have 50% to 60% colored guard hairs, with the rest white. They can have different masks depending on their color.


11. Point Pattern

Also known as the Siamese pattern, point ferrets will have a distinct color difference between their body color and the color of their points. The mask pattern will depend on the color of this type of ferret. A “V” mask is acceptable for black, sable, black sable, cinnamon and chocolate ferrets. Champagnes can either have a “V” mask or no mask. The “T” pattern or full mask isn’t accepted for ferrets with the point pattern.


12. Solid Pattern

A solid patterned ferret should have 100% of their guard hairs colored. The color concentration across a solid patterned ferret’s body should be the same from their head to their tail.

point pattern ferret
Image By: Point pattern, Erin Donalson, Shutterstock

13. Mitt Pattern

Ferrets with a mitted pattern will have white mitts on all four feet. They can also have a white bib, knee patches, and tail tip.


14. Blaze Pattern

Ferrets with the blaze pattern will have a long white blaze starting on their forehead and going down between their ears and ending at the shoulders. Their mask can vary, but it should never be a full-color mask across the whole face. Colored rings around their eyes may be seen. Their front and back feet can have either white mitts or white tips (smaller than mitts). They may also have white knee patches and a white tip of the tail. Across their tummies, a white bib, speckles, or roaning are all acceptable.


15. Panda Pattern

Ferrets with a panda pattern should have an almost totally white head, including their necks and throats. They can have colored guard hairs over the eye area, forming shaded rings. Panda patterned ferrets should have four white mitts and may also have white knee patches and tail tip.

panda pattern
Image By: Panda Pattern by BestShots, Shutterstock

16. Striped Pattern

This type of ferret pattern forms a stripe of darker guard hairs across a white coat. The stripe will usually be brown and located down the ferret’s back. Note this pattern isn’t accepted by the American Ferret Association but it may be seen in some domestic ferrets.


17. Mutt Pattern

This pattern, also not accepted by the American Ferret Association, is usually used to describe a ferret with any coat color and pattern that doesn’t fall neatly into one of the above categories. You may see different coat colors, roaning, spots, and other patterns all on one ferret!

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Conclusion

Figuring out what color and pattern your ferret is can be tricky, especially considering that they can change color when they shed their coats!

Older ferrets will also start to grow more white guard hairs, which can make it difficult to figure out their true color if you adopted them at an older age.

Did you work out what color your pet ferret is? Or maybe you’ve decided which coat color and pattern you’d love your next ferret to have!

For more on ferrets, check out these posts:

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Featured Image Credit: Couperfield, Shutterstock

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