For the love of ferrets: Martinsville woman runs ferret halfway house

After her first pet ferret in 1977, Mason Lowrey was in love. Her interest was forever sparked in these furry creatures, even though her first experience with the animals was with a ravenous, chicken-eating one.

That unconditional love later led Lowrey to open the Ferret Rescue and Halfway House in 1991. The Halfway House now houses more than 80 adoptable ferrets.

The shelter is located next to Lowrey’s house in Martinsville, built by her late husband to house the increasing numbers of ferrets being abandoned by unprepared owners.

Unprepared owners are described by Lowrey as people who buy ferrets as an impulse or gift without knowing how to properly care for them.

“We get a lot of calls from people saying, you know, ‘We’ve got the animal, and we’re in trouble. What can we do?’” Lowrey said.

Because of a lack of information about ferrets, buyers usually can’t handle the new ferret because they don’t know how to train them. Lowery said untrained ferrets are known to bite and tear up furniture if loose, while trained ferrets will not bite and can be let loose in the house without worry.

Lowrey has many packets and pamphlets on ferret care and diseases along with a ferret booklet she hands out to visitors at the shelter.

Lowrey’s love for the ferrets is obvious: Not only is she the director and founder of the shelter, but she also pays for the venture out of her own pocket. Because of the remote location of the shelter, publicity of needed adopters and volunteers has been difficult.

“As long as they’re young, they go out pretty quickly, but I’m beginning to really get a stock of older ferrets right now, and they’re almost impossible to place,” Lowrey said.
Ferrets are adopted and surrendered often, and the number of ferrets at the shelter increases each year.
There are at least 60 or more in the shelter at once, Lowrey said.

The number of volunteers can be counted on one hand. The shelter has about five consistent volunteers that work mostly weekends. There is no paid staff; The money from adoption fees and donations goes directly toward ferret care, such as food, cages and bedding.

One of the five volunteers, senior Jasmin Chrzan, goes to the shelter every Friday to help Lowrey. She cleans the cages and grooms the ferrets by clipping nails and cleaning ears.

“It gets hectic with so few volunteers,” Chrzan said. “(Lowrey) is usually running the place by herself. The thing that would make volunteering easier would definitely be more volunteers. Supplies are always good, but we need people to put them to use.”