PET FERRET LAYS WIRE

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25581, 24 August 1948, Page 4

PET FERRET LAYS WIRE

600 FT OF NARROW PIPING MONTH’S JOB DONE IN MORNING "The Press” Special Service AUCKLAND, August 23. The task of laying 600 ft of electrical wiring through a maze of 4in glazed piping beneatn the floors of a factory building—estimated to keep an electrician’s party employed for at least a month—has been accomplished in a single morning. The job was done by a pet ferret, and the only other equipment needed was a dead rabbit, a small air compressor, and some fishing line. Electricians and technical advisers faced with the problem of laying the wires beneath a new building at Korma Mills’ factory at Royal Oak were able to see no method of doing the work except by hand, which would have meant weeks of exacting and expensive labour. Then someone remembered about ferrets. After that, it was only a matter of organisation. A member of the electrical staff at the factory, Mr Murray Sanderson, knew that Russell Hill, aged 17, of Otahuhu, had a well-trained ferret of unusually placid temperament. Russell agreed to lend his pet, and another member of the electrical staff was deputed to shoot a rabbit. When he arrived at the mills with the “bait” the ferret was waiting to begin its task. Aroma of Rabbit Eighty feet of fishing line was tied to the ferret’s collar, and to the end of the line the electric wire was attached. The ferret was introduced to the open end of the first pipe, from which issued —on a current of air blown through by a small compressor at the far end—a delicious smell of rabbit. With twitching whiskers, the ferret dashed into the pipe, drawing the line and wire. By judicious use of the air compressor and rabbit, the ferret was induced to run through each lot of piping, around corners and bends which only a ferret could negotiate. It was in and out of 60 holes, and its longest trip was along 130 ft of piping. Mr Sanderson followed the progress of the job on a sketch plan of the piping. On one occasion the ferret disappeared in a maze of pipes. No amount of effort with the compressor and the rabbit would make it come out. Then it was found that the pipes were not laid according to the plan and that the animal had reached a dead end. Eventually it was retrieved, emerging from the correct pipe with the fishing line and wire intact. Only a ferret could have done the job, in Mr Sanderson’s opinion. Russell Hill is justifiably proud of his pet, but he believes that any ferret trained well cduld be used.