Housing

Mink are unbelievably active and mobile animals and they need the freedom of a run. They also need the possibility of going for a swim, as large an area as possible. We regularly take our mink to the beach and as soon as Snoopy sees the water she wants to go in (yes, mink also swim in salt water).

At home in her run she also spends a great part of the day in the water and the pond is really too small, that is why we have to refill half of the pond every day because of all of the splashing around. This is also one of the reasons that a mink should never be kept indoors. The second reason is that you can never give the animal the space it needs indoors. In Germany they have much better regulations as regards keeping pets and they give minimum sizes in the law. The law states that a mink may only be kept in a run that is at least 6 m² in size. People who want to keep mink in smaller environments automatically cannot; however, in The Netherlands, the only regulation is that you are not allowed to keep (protected) species at all. However, there is no law to cover “unprotected” animals. There is no-one who can stop you from keeping a rabbit in a shoebox but someone who has 2 hectares of land cannot keep monkeys or beasts of prey. The third reason why a mink must be kept outdoors is that a mink gets warm very easily. If it gets too warm in our house, Snoopy  quickly tries to find somewhere cool. For this reason you have to ensure that the run does not get the sun all day long. A mink cannot take its fur coat off and can overheat.

Snoopy’s house is a former kids playhouse and we have added to it. The house has different levels and there is a pipe which goes around the house that she has to use to get outside. There is vinyl on the floor, which is easy to clean. For her sleeping area we decided on a hut in the run and we put some blankets and material in it. However, Snoopy dragged the material out of the hut  tried to get them into her playhouse via the pipe. So, we put some blankets in the playhouse and now she sleeps there all the time.

As a mink is often in the water and is often wet, the blankets need to be changed regularly otherwise they start to stink.

We put a plastic tray, roughly 10 cm high, in the corner of the play house and we filled it with sawdust pellets. These work well in the litter tray, they absorb well and get rid of the smell. Snoopy always uses this litter tray and so the play house stays clean and easy to maintain.

We tried to feed her mice and rats but she used to hide them everywhere (particularly in the pipes!) which we realized after a while. Now we give her frozen mink food that we put in her run and it is eaten within hours. Her run is approximately 4 m² and actually too small but because she is let out every evening, she is able to use up her energy.