Brave mother stoat

We disturbed a mother stoat when we were out ferreting rabbits earlier in July. Our white ferret went down the last rabbit hole at a rabbit clearance and control job in the hills above Perth and a stoat popped out the other end, turned round and then went straight back in again. There was a bit of noise from an argument between a really cross mother stoat and a rather surprised ferret, and the ferret popped out of the burrow. The ferret wasn’t hurt, thank goodness; a mother stoat defending her young could do some serious damage.

 Mother stoat came out to see who was disturbing her; we took this picture of her and she wasn’t at all fazed. She was so very bold and unafraid because she was intent on protecting her young. She decided they needed to be moved to a quieter place and carried them one by one over to a hole in the banking behind. The normal litter size for stoats is 6—12 kits and our mother moved 7 kits out of the burrow. Stoats normally have their young in April and May, so this must have been a late May litter because the kits were still quite dependent on their mother; kits are normally weaned from 5 weeks old and can hunt independently at 3 months old.

The proper name for stoats is Mustela erminea, referring to the lovely white fur, ermine, that stoats in Scotland show in the winter. They belong to a bigger group of animals called the Family Mustelidae, as do ferrets; no wonder our ferret and the mother stoat fell out. Stoats are very aggressive hunters and when customers ring us to say they have a marauding stoat it is a very good description. We do have a very lucky customer here though; with a whole family of stoats in the grounds then the rabbit problem will certainly be under control.