Ferret Frolic!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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Not a ferret story, but for a real challenge, try clipping the toenails of a hedgehog! When a hedgie curls up IT HURTS! Especially if he or she grabs your finger in the process. Imagine having your finger trapped inside of a cactus, where the only option is to suck up the pain and wait for the hedgie to relax. If you try to pull your finger out, you are going against all of the spines and it hurts worse.

I finally gave up on trimming my hedgie’s toenails after I covered her house with sand paper and put her food bowl on top. To get to the food bowl, she had to “auto sharpen” her nails every day. Between that and the material inside her running wheel (About 4 hours of running per night), I never had to trim her nails again.

Sorry for the minor hijack. It just seemed to fit with the exotic animal thing… :slight_smile:

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Hey cool, I have hedgies too!! I’ll have to try the snadpaper trick.

Regarding ferret nails, I make dh cut them.

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Hey all!

I have three hungry hairballs too! Mine are shelter ferrets, they were already trained when I got them so they don’t bite, they use the litterbox and when they don’t they go in the corner on the card board covering.

I have had these three brats for nearly three years now. One of them is a Marshall Farms ferret, she has the two blue dots behind her ear. She is slowly recovering from some strage illness that was not diagnosed but probably had to do with a toothache in part. She stopped eating and probably hadn’t eaten for a few days before I noticed. The vet siad it probably was due to a toothache. Finally a few days later she started eating and drinking water again. She still sleeps alot though and rarely plays.
By the way, being a Marshals Ferret, she has always been smaller than the other two and that is probably another reason she has been sick.

As for the toenails…I have never had my ferrets nails clipped ever and I don’t plan on it either Sure once in a while I will get a scratch on my arm but it’s no big deal.

Anyways Ferrets rule!

I am in the process of making a ferret board using the same software that this board is using and I will have it ready in about an hour. I will post a message here when it is complete.

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LunaSea, the sandpaper trick on the house (with a ramp to the top) seemed to work well.

I made a custom running wheel out of 10" embrodiery hoops, popsicle sticks, roller bearings from a sliding glass door and some assorted wood. In order to make the wheel cleanable, I sewed velcro onto plastic needlepoint mesh and glued the mesh inside the wheel. I then sewed the other side of the velcro onto old blue jean material to make several washable inner liners. I don’t know why my hedgie always went to the bathroom when she ran, but it was pretty much a given. From what I’ve researched, the number one risk to hedgies is not getting enough exercise, but that’s another interesting thread all on it’s own (about hedgie cholesterol).

I’m sure the Ferret owners out there have all gone through similar trials trying to find the right sort of toys and environment for their guys too!

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Hey all, I am finished making my ferret board, simply register as you did on this board and post. There is also a other pets section to so it’s not just for ferrets!
go to http://forums.hexonxonx.org/

Thanks!

Mellie

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I should probably clip my guys’ nails more often, too. But, so far, no accidents. I do clip them, about every couple of weeks. It took them a while to get used to it, but now Kringle will lie on his back for me, while I do them, most of the time. Shadow’s a little more difficult, and I usually need my GF to hold him while I clip. Otherwise, I’d probably be causing bleeding, too. I did also find that when I switched from nail clippers to a pair of scissor-style clippers, Shadow seemed to mind it a WHOLE lot less.

Re: Ferretone. Everything I’ve read swears ferrets love this stuff, but my guys will not touch it.

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Wow! That’s impressive!

Oh! Don’t get me started on toys. The little buggers. Do I have the only ferrets in the world that won’t play with toys? There hasn’t been a toy invented that they’ll play with for more than a day. Even when I swap them, so some are in circulation, and some are out, if they’ve seen it before, it’s no fun. Everything I’ve read said they’d forget about them, and see them as new, after being out of circulation for a while. Nope.

The only exceptions to this are certain balls. But, they have to be balls they can pick up in their mouths, because their idea of playing with them is to pick them up, take them under some piece of furniture, and leave them there. Occasionally, Shadow will rediscover one, and play with it for a few minutes, if it has a bell in it. But, that’s it.

Bags, on the other hand, they love. Especially the crinkly grocery bags. They’ll play with those for hours. Boxes are good, too, but not as good as bags.

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Mine won’t go for toys either. The only things they play with:

Bags - especially crinkly ones
Tubes - I bought cheap dryer tubing and taped down the edges
The rug - they’ll tunnel and chase each other under it for ages
My feet, “hey, look! she forgot to put her slippers on. Attack!!”
Has anyone made their fuzzies a rice box? I’d love to but I just don’t have any room left.

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LunaSea, I’d love to try the rice box idea but I haven’t gotten around to it yet. There have been times, though, when the girls were “helping” me unpack holiday gifts I’d ordered-- helping in the “disappear into the box of packing peanuts” sense. They obviously loved burrowing and chasing each other but since I don’t want them eating styrofoam the adventures were short-lived.

Twitch’s toy stash is between my comfy chair and the wall, under a window. After a busy hour or so wrecking my living room with Raisin’s help, she goes back there and sleeps in her treasures like a wee dragon. I’m thinking of changing her name to Smaug.

During the summer, since I only have air conditioning in my bedroom, they get to have most of their playtime in there. They absolutely LOVE chasing each other around & under the sheets and blankets.

Davebear, mine don’t like Ferretone either. Last year I started feeding them “Ferret Lax” to combat a hairball problem, but a couple months ago they decided they didn’t like that either.

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Yes, foam peanuts and sheets/blankets are very popular with my guys. I let them into the bedroom in the morning and the evening, when I’m getting dressed for work or changed after work. They love the bed! Unfortunately, they also love digging up the carpet under my gf’s bureau. So, I’m gonna have to replace it, when I move out.

And, they REALLY love my closet, recently. It hasn’t had a strike plate since before we moved in but, recently, the wood gave way, so it wouldn’t stay closed. I just finished installing a new strike plate, so that problem is solved, but the were driving me nuts, this week, dragging and pushing my shoes all over.

But, back to peanuts. There are some foam peanuts, made out of potato starch, that are completely harmless. Even if they eat them, it won’t hurt them. (They don’t taste good, though. I tried one, just to see.) You can tell them from the styrofoam ones, because the potato starch peanuts are tan and, if you put them in water, they dissolve. (That’s actually kind of fun, for humans.)

We also have a paper shredder, so once in a while, I’ll fill a box with shredded paper, and let them burrow in that. It’s probably a little risky, in terms of potential paper cuts, but so far it’s worked pretty well.

Has anyone’s ferret(s) ever gotten any mail? As I mentioned, Kringle has this chronic problem that requires him to be medicated every day. I get his medicine at the local CVS pharmacy. It comes in a little red bottle, labelled with my last name, comma, Kringle (Pet). Well, earlier this week, he got a piece of mail from CVS. When I opened it for him (he wasn’t interested), it turned out to be a check for $1.30. It’s a refund, due to the health insurance fiasco we had here a few months ago. It’s made out to Kringle P. <lastname>. Nitwits. Somewhere in their system, it HAS to say he’s a pet. The labels are computer generated.

I haven’t decided whether to simply frame it, or use an ink pad to make a little print of his paw on the back, as endorsement. Or, take him with me to the bank, and see if they’ll open an account for him. I think he’d enjoy that. But, I don’t have two forms of ID for him. :wink:

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I just saw this thread so I am jumping in late.

I’ve had ferrets for years. At the moment I have my old albino guy PoBear (we just call him Whitey) who is getting up in years. He came from Marshalls and has had to have surgery to remove adrenal glads. He is the cat tormentor.

We also have naught Abby who was born last spring, he is also most likely to find himself in trouble. Clifford (another Marshall) died last August from cancer.

Both sables and both very sweet.

Raising ferrets is definitely not for the weak. :wink:

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our two-year-old runt is sick now. The vet thinks she caught something from the three-month-old but I’m not so sure. She may have found something inside the couch that’s making her throw up. Last I heard, she was seen finally eating out of her bowl again. I hope she’s able to keep it down. She’ll be going back to the vet in the morning.

The new ferret came from Petco, we were going to check out the local shelter but they don’t keep ferrets AFIK. We were really at Petco to just get a cuttlebone for my 'tiels but we ended up getting the playpen LunaSea suggested then we went by the ferret stand. Our new little guy looks like a miniature grizzly! Of course, he was dubbed “Bear”.

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BTW: aside from occasional sneezing fits when we first brought him in, Bear shows no signs of being sick.