HELP!
 
I have had ferrets for nine years and I've never experienced any
introduction problems like these.
 
My neutered male Bubba lost his roomate in March due to Adrenal Disease.
I decided it was time to find him a couple of new friends to play with.
After putting an ad in a local paper, I got two separate replies.  I took
Bubba with me when we met the first guy , a very small three year old
neutered albino male named Sammy.  The meeting went fine, or so I thought.
When we got home and let them out in the ferret room all hell broke loose.
Bubba went to play with him and he freaked.  He lunged at Bubba, and the
poor guy didn,t know what to do.  Sammy had his bottle brush tail every
time Bubba came near him and poop would literally fly!  That was about two
weeks ago.  Now Bubba and Sammy seem to works things out to a point.  Sammy
follows Bubba all over the place but Bubba doesn't seem too interested and
just runs away.  When Sammy is in his cage Bubba will always go to the cage
and wait for him to come out.  There has never been any all out wars
between these two.
 
When we went to meet the other guy " Hanky" who is two years old, we just
took Bubba along as we didn't want to stress Sammy any more than necessary.
Bubba and Hanky seemed fine.  I came home to introduce him to Sammy, well
all hell broke loose again!  Poo was flying everywhere.  That was two weeks
ago and things haven't gotten any better.  I have them in separate cages
side by side, I've bathed both and switched their bedding, put linatone in
a dish and had them share, but nothing seems to work for long.  Neither
Sammy nor Hanky have been around other ferrets before, and they seem more
scared than anything.  When I have them out together (supervised) they will
run around checking everything out.  It seems when they start to sniff at
each other they are both terrified and all hell breaks loose.  There is poo
flying and alot of screaming.  I have let them go for awhile hoping they
will work it out, but I separate them when it seems to be getting out of
hand.  There hasn.t been any blood drawn, but Sammy has alot of marks on
him.  He also seems to be the aggressor.  The other night I had them out
and they went at it, so I decided it was time to separate them again.  Well
I managed to get them apart but Sammy came flying at me and nailed me in
the leg.  I wonder if Sammy is acting this way because he is so much
smaller than the other two?  He is a people friendly ferret and loves to
cuddle and give kisses, just don't interfere in his fights!
 
I can have Bubba and Sammy out together but Bubba seems a bit leary of him.
I think Bubba would like to play with him but he's scared he's going to set
him off.  Bubba and Hanky can be out together but they don't play either.
I think Hanky wants to play but he doesn't know how to play with other
ferrets.  He has a teddy bear that he plays with and he plays very rough
with it, so he approaches Bubba the same way and Bubba chases him away.
Bubba has only played with little girls and they were very gentle.  As for
Hanky and Sammy they are only out together if I can keep a close eye on
them.
 
Sorry this is so long.  If anyone has any ideas about what is going on or
other methods that have worked in similar situations, please let me know.
Is this just a matter of working things out or are they out to kill each
other?  Will these three ever become friends?
 
Thanx in Advance
 
Cathy
 
*************************************
Cathy and Don Ruetten
[log in to unmask]
http://home.golden.net/~ruetten/
*************************************
[Posted in FML issue 3438]