Ferret Frolic!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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I learned, today, that there is at least a third ferret owner, here. I didn’t want to bug Ferret_Herder, if there were just the two of us, but since there are more, let’s have a frolic! :slight_smile: Maybe there are more of us, here.

I have just two, at the moment. I know a lot of ferret owners prefer larger numbers, but two works for us. Kringle, The Christmas Ferret, is very light colored Silver Mitt, and, sorry folks, the cutest ferret in the world. Unfortunately, he’s not too healthy. He has Severe Inflamatory Bowel Disease, which necessitates forcing medicine into him every night. But, he’s doing really well, at the moment. He’s also one of the sweetest critters I’ve ever known; a total cuddlepuppy, who loves his Daddy.

Shadow, on the other hand, is a dark Sable. Very handsome, but the embodiment of evil. When people meet both of them, together, Shadow gets the Oohs. Then people notice Kringle, and he gets the Awwws. Both of them really like people, and Shadow isn’t mean. He doesn’t bite; he’s just evil.

For instance, they’ve both been sound asleep in their cage, although the cage door was open. On my way to the bedroom, I noticed that, at some point, Shadow had awakened, walked past the litter box on the top shelf of the cage, walked past the litter box on the bottom shelf, climbed OVER the litter box in the back hallway, and pooped and peed BEHIND it. Then he reversed course, and went back to sleep. Grrrrrrr!

He will also push the perfectly clean litter box on the lower level out of the way, climb behind IT, and poop on the cage floor. The only part of the cage floor that isn’t covered with newspaper. Not that he has an aversion to pooping on paper. Oh, no. I can pretty much time how long it will be, after I’ve put fresh paper in the cage, before he poops right smack dab in the middle of the cage door, on the paper.

So, tell me about your feasels. :slight_smile:

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No one? :confused:

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I HAD ferrets… and they were great… but moving onto res (residences, on-campus accomodation) at uni meant I had to sell them. I can’t remember what kinds they were (they weren’t albino! Those kind just freak me out :slight_smile: ), but I do remember they both had the tattoos in their ear that meant they were bred somewhere in New York.

My favourite prank was to put a treat in the bottom of this little bag that was used to hold sand to hold a helium balloon down. The poor little ferrets would go for the treat and then get their head stuck, leading them to do their little jump around the room, but backwards… without seeing. It was great.

What surprised me was how smart they were. They were way to clever for their own good sometimes though, getting into the treats and making themselves sick. They were brave too, in fact they had my dog (Golden Retreiver) scared when they did their play-jump-dance thing.

One died right before I had to sell them. A urinary tract problem or something. Never realised how attached I got to the little guys until one died and a couple weeks later I had to sell one.

Mine were fairly litter trained, but as you said… they seem to love going “outside the box”. Sometimes just right outside it, while looking right at me. Brave little suckers hehe. Other times when they went in the box, it was a miracle. I never thought I’d be so excited to see ferret poop.

I have plenty of experiences from them… thinking I may get another one or two when I get my own place :).

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I have two! There’s Twitch, the Mastermind, who hides behind her adorable Oreo Cookie face (she’s a sable mitt with the cutest black nose ever), fooling visitors into think she’s “the nice one.” She was actually once caught trying to remove a friend’s ATM card from the friend’s bag.

Raisin’s hell-raising is more out in the open. When I bought her (I chose her because she ran up the inside of my coat sleeve), they gave me a cardboard box to carry her home in. As I was leaving the store, I heard a guy at the counter yell, “Hey, she bought the one that bites!”

Ok, so she’s nippy (I call the big one Bitey) but I love her anyway. I’m thinking about getting a third, but I can’t really afford a bigger cage right now.

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That would be Marshall’s Ferret Farm. They’re the biggest breeder in the US. All of mine have come from them, but I wouldn’t buy another one of theirs. I’ve had three. One died of a congenital defect, one is sick, and the third one is questionable.

They are, aren’t they. It’s sometimes scary how much problem-solving skill they have.

I’m sorry. :frowning:

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I picked my (new, it changed) username because I own ferrets, and because sometimes my life feels like I’m trying to herd ferrets - think of it as being like herding cats but with hyperactive critters with short attention spans. :eek:

I first started owning ferrets in the early '90s, and have two ferrets now, both about a year old and spayed/neutered/descented. They are both “blaze” ferrets, in that they both have a patch of white on the top of the head. This is occasionally linked to genetic defects, but nothing has shown up as of yet. The female is more of a “milk chocolate” in tone, while the male is closer to a dark “silvermitt” color.

The male is the more rambunctious of the two, if distinctions between ferrets make any sense in that respect. :stuck_out_tongue: He is very vocal, and runs and jumps around “dooking” (making a chuckling sound associated with happiness/play) often. He has a funny kind of a fast trot to his usual walk; he seems to make an amazing amount of leg movements for the short distance he covers. He also likes to chew on the straps of their hammocks. Since he nearly always does it to the one his “sister” is in, I joke that he’s just trying to dump her out of it. We call our female a “ditz” - when she shed out her fur for winter, her head fur turned a bright blonde so it was appropriate. She’s more likely to accidentally run into something when jumping around happily, or to be slow on the draw at trying to escape when I open the cage door. She really hates baths, in that she’ll clutch you with her paws when she hears water running, and knows that the bathroom = “place where I get a bath”, so she’ll often reflexively clutch you when she notices you’re holding her in the bathroom. She also has to remove food from the dish before she’ll eat it.

I’ve had to twist-tie down all sorts of panels and doors in their cage, to prevent escape, as the little critters are sharp in that respect. They haven’t figured out zippers on purses/bags yet (thank goodness), but find our front closet endlessly fascinating, and are slim enough to squeeze under that door. They also start frantically running between the various cage doors when they hear a crinkling plastic bag - I stored plastic bags near their cage for when I scoop the litter box, and they know that sound close by means that a cage door will definitely be opening soon.

He loves the treats I’ve bought for them (Yogies brand banana-raisin chips, Kaytee brand peanut butter-flavored treats, and regular raisins); she sniffs the treat and then turns up her nose.

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Just found this thread, we have a female runt. We’ve had Tazzi ever since she was five weeks old and she’s always been quite a bit smaller than other ferrets. She was originally mostly brown but her coat has been getting lighter over the past couple of years. We don’t let her roam around because there are too many ferret-sized holes for her to get trapped in, she once ended up behind the dishwasher. We usually keep her tied to her cage instead and sometimes leash her up and take her to another room. She also has a ferret-sized exercise ball. We’ve been thinking of getting her a playmate but we need to work out how to let them out together but not get trapped behind the dishwaser or get their leashes tangled. I’ve seen 7×7×4 portable fence enclosures, that sort of thing might work if we can find a smaller size.

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Jeff, what worked for me was buying a “baby gate” - I put it across the doorway that leads to the kitchen and bathroom, then close the bedroom door and let them run around the dining and living room areas, supervised. I still have to shoo them out from behind my computer desk, but it’s not as much of a problem as it would be otherwise.

Get one with lots of wide, slippery plastic areas that make it hard for little feet to get a purchase on, and holes small enough that a ferret won’t try to poke a head through and get stuck.

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Excellent names! Do your guys (girls?) like raisins, as treats? Mine do. It’s one of the few non-ferret specific things they will eat.

My guys are probably spoiled. Their cage could probably hold half a dozen ferrets in comfort. I’d actually like to get a slightly smaller one, because the one they have has an odd little “landing” between the lower and upper levels, which is useless. And, they poop on it, damn them! :wink:

Woohoo! On preview, I see more folks have joined the party. But, I’ve got a meeting to go to, so I’ll have to read those posts later.

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I LOVE watching them scurry around on their tiny little legs! And the bippity-bippity-bippity bouncing humpback run. They’re just too cute. :slight_smile:

My guys aren’t chewers; they’re scratchers. They scratch through their hammocks. They scratch at cabinets and doors and drawers. They scratch at the carpet, when I let them in the bedroom. The only thing they don’t scratch at is the $80 scratching post/climbimg toy I bought them.

Do you bathe your ferrets often? I’ve pretty much stopped, because I found that, with my guys, it made them smell worse. As long as I keep their bedding clean, so that they aren’t redepositing their oils back onto their fur, they never get more than very mildly musky. I’ve read that bathing them too often can make them smellier, but I haven’t seen anything about not bathing them.

And, yeah, I had to do a LOT of ferretproofing. We have a pretty open apartment, and there were some real challenges. I had to build a kind of a wall around the stove, to keep them out from behind/under it. I had to gimmick a removable barrier to the pantry, because they can get under the door, and then under the fridge. I’ve had to modify several pieces of furniture, as well. But, it’s all worth it, to me.

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Hi, Jeff. My Kringle was a runt, too. I actually bought him because he was the last one left. No one wanted him, I guess, because he doesn’t look like a “normal” bandit-masked ferret. Even I thought he was kind of funny looking, at first.

I’ve seen adds for some playpens for ferrets that are made out of plexiglas. They’re round, and I don’t think they’re as big as the one you describe. I’ll see if I can find the info, for you.

You might try what I used to do, which is to completely ferretproof one room, so that she can roam and romp to her heart’s content in that room. I found that our bedroom was actually really easy to ferretproof. Sure, they can go under the bed or a bureau, but that’s about it. And, I can get them out when I need to.

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Keeping her confined is only part of the problem. She absolutely refused to be litter trained which is why we keep her near her cage. The entire bottom of her cage is acts as a litter pan and being tied to her cage encourages her to go in there as opposed to using the floor somewhere.

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Marcie had a ferret when I met her. I admit that I didn’t think I would warm up to him, but I came to love that little guy to bits. He, too, was a product of the Marshal Ferret Farm operation and he suffered from adrenal gland tumors. An excellent ferret vet told us that she thought the Marshal place neutered and descented at too young an age. Anyway, we had to have Ferry the Ferret put to sleep when he was nearly nine years old. I miss him terribly and hope that Marcie will eventually decide we need another one.

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We’ve had ferrets since they became legal in this state (nine years ago?). My very first ferret was a lovely silvermitt I named Bandit. She was a lot of fun, unfortunately she died quite young (around 3 years) because she caught the flu from my grate-grandmother (not sp) while we were caring for her towards the end of her life. This little terror once managed to find a crack in the floor of my room while we were remodeling it, and ended up in the light-fixture on the floor below :eek: We got the giant-ferrets-can’t-open-it cage soon after, you better believe it.

While we still had her- actually we decided she needed a friend within six months, when the kitten she played with got too big and too rough- we got my brother’s ferret, Fang, who was so named because his long teeth stuck out over his lip. The vet didn’t think it was bothering him, so we left them alone. He was a huge albino, who dwarfed both of his girl pals. He was the laziest animal we’ve ever owned (including the cats) but he was quite bright. He taught both girls to cover themselves with the blankets that lined the hammocks- which is just about the cutest animal behavior ever. We had him until about a year and a half ago, which is quite remarkable, since ferrets usually only live 10 years, and we knew he was at least 2 or 3 when we adopted him from Ferret Rescue.

The ferret we still have is my last pet, my baby Claudia, who I realized a few days ago must be going on eight herself. I got her a few months after Bandit died, and she looks a lot like Bandit did except for a lighter mask, which isn’t suprising since she’s another silvermitt (they’re my favorite, what can I say?). Besides the increasing sleepiness, you’d never guess she was an old lady. The first thing Claudie did when I picked her up at the pet store was to draw blood, so I had to name her after my favorite child vampire :smiley: She doesn’t bite anything but socks now, but the name still suits her. She’s the most expressive of the bunch, and has prefected what we call the “fruitloop dance” which she does whenever her sweet tooth acts up. We decided not to get another ferret since a. she didn’t seem to miss Fang as much as he had Bandit(frankly, she seems to like having the cage- which is nearly as tall as I am and considerably wider- to herself. overly affectionate she’s not) b. we didn’t want to get another baby and have ferrets far apart in ages again. Perhaps I’ll start over with another pair someday, who knows.

We gave Fang the most baths, since as a male he was smellier. Claudia hates water, and looks pitiful wet, so I only give her one when absolutely necessary, which turns out to be once a month or so. I don’t think the scratches on my hands would ever heal if I did it more often, lol. Oh, and none of the three seemed(s) to understand what a litterbox was for. They played in them like sandboxes, and seemed to think they should be able to tunnel out through them. :stuck_out_tongue:

I really like the second half of this page http://members.tripod.com/ferretmagic/info2.html , where it comments on ferret behaviors…I know our guys did or do all of this stuff!

BTW, ferrets are terrified of smoked turkey- as we found out one dinner time when they begged for turkey per usual, then flipped out. Strange animals!

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Thanks but I did some poking around the net and found this at Petco.

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My freind Ariel had 3 ferrets. Phila, Phillip and Phillipa.

We were 8. we took them outside to have a tea party.

She doesn’t have ferrets anymore.

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Answering this out of sequence, in the hope of warning you before you actually order it. Ferrets climb! I know all the books say they don’t, but they’re wrong. Maybe SOME ferrets don’t climb, but all three that I’ve had climb(ed) almost as well as squirrels. Shadow would be out of that enclosure in under 30 seconds. (Well, I was going to say 10 seconds, but he’d have to spend at least 20 seconds sniffing it.) I tried baby gates, at first, but they had plastic mesh, like the enclosure you linked to. They thought it was a new climbing toy. I had to replace the mesh with plywood.

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I’m sorry about Ferry. But, nine is a pretty good lifespan for a ferret, and I’m sure he’s having fun, wherever he is, now.

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Elfkin - You guys up north had a big head start on us, down here in Mass. They didn’t legalize ferrets, here, until a few years ago. It used to annoy me, because I’ve wanted one for a long time.

I think you’re probably right not to get another one, right now. They can get territorial about their cages. Kringle wasn’t thrilled when we got Shadow, but he was still young enough to be pretty flexible about it. I think older ferrets get more “set in their ways”.

I should probably mention, Kringle uses the litterboxes (we have 6, scattered about), almost all the time. Generally, when he doesn’t, it’s because he couldn’t make it, in time, or I didn’t clean it, the last time someone used it. They’re pretty finicky about using dirty boxes. Even Shadow will use it most of the time, when they’re locked in their cage, and some of the time when they’re out. That’s why I think it’s so evil when he doesn’t; because he knows he’s supposed to. I think I gave people the wrong impression in the OP.

That’s a pretty good page you linked to. My guys exhibit all the behaviors they list, too. (But, DON’T click the links on that page! The LIFE one takes you to a porn site. The other one is broken.) What they call “the speedbump” or “flat-ferret” pose, we call “flumping”. My guys do it when they want someone to play with them.

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Thanks Dave.

I am kinda taking this off-topic, but… reading this thread has made me want ferrets again. That means I’ll get them sometime in the future. I thought I’d ask you Dopers now while I have the wealth of knowledge here.

#1) What do you guys feed your ferrets? Mine hated ferret food, but loved the cheapest cat food I could find (Kozy Kitten). One of my ferrets (Spanky, after The Little Rascals, get your mind out of the gutter!) was already eating it (Kozy Kitten) when I got him. The other one (Stella, from a Grateful Dead song) was brought up eating ferret food (don’t remember the brand, sorry), but quickly decided she liked Kozy Kitten better when I let the two live together.

#2) Are the ferrets sold at pet stores good? Do they come from little “ferret factories”? I’ve heard the stories of how puppies at pet stores usually end up with problems because their mothers are bred and inbred. Does the same apply to ferrets? If so, where do you go to buy ferrets? :slight_smile:

#3) Anyone know if ferrets are legal in Australia (Victoria, specifically)? When I had them, I lived in Wisconsin.

I started washing my ferrets once a month, and they loved it. They would swim around in the “deep end” of the bathtub. I’ve never seen a ferret go more wild than when I dry him off best I can with a towel and then stick him into his (freshly cleaned) cage. He’d jump/roll/bounce around for a good half hour like a crazy ferret. Anyways, I also noticed they smelt more when I gave them the bath. The trick was to change bedding more often (and litter! Not just scooping out the bad stuff).

Mine were also scratchers. Actually, Spanky taught Stella to… now that I think about it, he taught her lots of bad habits! She was a little bit of a biter, but got over it after a while.

And yes, ferrets climb! They used to climb up the back of my dresser. The back of my dresser was just a solid piece of that cardboard/wood stuff. Now, keep in mind that for every two inches they climbed up, they’d slide down an inch (resulting in major scratches for the dresser, lucky it was the back). Whatever was on my dresser must have been worth it for them, though.